My take on the current epoch American abortion political issue set, for the historians, political archaeologists and anthropologists of the future. Living document, FYI, so expect additions, amendments and corrections.
(1) My personal position is that it should be totally illegal except in cases of rape, incest and life of the mother.
(2) However, I know full well that not even the most conservative jurisdiction in the Western world would put up with that in any sort of long term sustained sense. Much less once you get past conservatives. I’m just too far to the right of the eventual compromise median.
(3) Though in my social circles back in St. Louis, I was on the left just because I want rape and incest exceptions. It’s true, it’s true.
(4) My personal position is therefore not a stable political Lagrange point. Virtually everyone who goes as far to the right as I do will fall into the gravity well further to the right, i.e. the only carve out being life of the mother. Likewise, anyone like me who is even a bit to the left of the farthest right position is going to want to fall into the leftward gravity well. Therefore, hardly anyone has my particular position.
(5) The white Western political median seems to want to be what the norm here is on the European continent, which is, first trimester totally legal, all other times legal under limited circumstances (rape/incest/life of the mother).
(6) American liberals are shocked when they find out how restrictive are European abortion laws. Even those in “feminist” Sweden. Likewise, European liberals are shocked when they find out how permissive the Roe era American abortion laws were, and that tightening them up only brought them to about the European median.
The Mississippi laws which were the “Dobbs” side of that case are somewhat on par with continental Europe slash the white Western median. After Dobbs was officially handed down, French President Emmanuel Manlet went on a performative bitching spree about it, (like, dude, what’s it to you). It didn’t take long until someone reminded him that French abortion laws at that moment were more restrictive than Mississippi’s, and furthermore, even Macron’s proposed liberalization still would have meant that France was slightly more restrictive than Mississippi.
(7) I predicted when Dobbs happened, and so far, it is starting to come true, the process of political erosion is working first in the more conservative states that currently has post-Roe laws more restrictive than the eventual median. It’s because the political median wants it legal in the given circumstances which I just stated. For much the same reason why, if you’re stuck in the middle of the desert, if given the choice only between too much water and no water, you’re going to pick the too much water option, just to be able to have water.
(8) The left is popping champagne bubbles right now, with every given pro-life state that gets officially less so with every given voter referendum, again, as I predicted. Eventually, though, political erosion will work on the more permissive immediate post-Roe states like California, to make their states’ laws more restrictive. Because the other side of the coin is that most people don’t want abortion to be quite that legal.
(9) If Roe v Wade as a court ruling would have never happened, then this process of political erosion on abortion politics on a per-state basis would have already taken place and become settled front line politics decades ago, with the dispute that is the everlasting culture war on this issue being waged nearly entirely in the cultural space with the polite comity to “leave the law alone.”
(10) If I had any authority in the matter and in the proper jurisdiction, I would go ahead and sign on to what I know full well will be the eventual compromise, even though, like I said, it’s to the left of my own worldview. Just get it over with. Why scream at each other any more and any longer, when we all know where we’re going to end up?
(11) However, the reason the eventual compromise won’t happen any time soon is NOT because of “pro-life absolutism,” etc etc. It’s because:
(12) When the Dobbs leak and then actual decision came down two years ago, I figured that it was going to be a Godsend for groups like NOW and NARAL. Your conventional plain jane feminist letter lobbies. Because it had been a long time since they’ve had that kind of good opportunity for attention, fund raising and membership drives. In recent years, plain jane feminists have been considered passe and yesterday’s news, as they lost out to much more fashionable left wing constituencies like the trannies and troons. The NOWs and NARALs need to milk that cow for as long as it can give, because it is the last cow they are ever going to get. Also for the fact that Democrats as a party want the problem, not the solution, in order to try to goose turnout. They’re not about to compromise that away until the cow is totally dry.
(13) I also know that there is a (non-surprising) “surprising” cache of support for abortion rights (up to a point) in the otherwise “evangelical” South, for an otherwise taboo reason that we can talk about here — Black men raping white women.
(14) After the median compromise is locked in, if at any point between then and the time in the future when the historians, archaeologists and anthropologists are reading this (what will by then be) ancient blog post, there is any attempt to push the median compromise of “fully legal any reason first trimester” to include the first half of the second trimester or the entirety of the second trimester, the taboo reason will be black women. I’ve watched enough Tommy Sotomayor to know that a lot of black women are really bad about not even knowing or figuring out they’re pregnant until they’re pretty far along, as if they don’t care or aren’t tuned in enough to their own existences. Which means that the first-second trimester boundary of fully legal is going to be thought (but not widely stated) to have a disparate negative impact on black women. Therefore, political energy will start gathering to change the line.
(15) The sector invests too much white knight silver bullet hope in abortion and birth control as demographic saviors, either past, present or future. What they don’t seem to realize is that just because you offer something to someone doesn’t mean they must use it. As George Strait once sang, you can lead a horse to love, but you can’t make him fall.
(16) And that in turn leads me to this warning. Using public or quasi-public force to prevent births within a group of people for the deliberate purpose of reducing the group’s population is a legal definition of genocide. (Art. 2, Sec. D, CPPCG). Any one of us from our sector who ever gets that kind of power should cut it out with the heretofore cute talk about abortion or birth control requirements relating to this that or the third relating to non-white populations. It’s not as if we haven’t already created a paper trail to prove that our intentions with all this have to do with race-based demographic competition and procreation. Let’s just say that I’ve been to The Hague recently, but it was voluntary. If you ever visit, I don’t want it to be involuntary.
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