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Spare a thought for poor Donald Trump, prisoner of abortion politics

Over at National Review, Hadley Arkes says Donald Trump has been terrible on abortion, but you can hardly blame the poor guy:

Trump and Vance are dealing with a bad hand that has been dealt them by the Supreme Court.... The most striking thing about the holding of the Court in the Dobbs case is that it slew the Great White Whale of Roe v. Wade, while going out of its way to say nothing about the most central and decisive point in the case: the standing of the unborn child in the womb as a small human being, who would claim the protections that would flow to any other human being under the laws.

....The conservative justices then returned the matter of abortion to the political arena, to a culture that had been tilted radically against the pro-life movement. And they returned it to a Republican political class that had always been skittish and nervous in dealing with the issue. Donald Trump has been nothing but a confirmed marketer, and when abortions surge to over a million a year, Trump takes it as a blaring sign that people want them. Never once has he taken the moment to point out to his listeners that all of this talk about 15 weeks or six weeks was really talk about when to protect a small human being about to be killed.

Poor Donald. He wouldn't be in this mess if the Supreme Court had just banned abortion completely from the start. Of course, left unsaid here is that Trump is an adult who can take any position he wants no matter how the Court ruled. But the obvious truth is that Trump simply doesn't believe that life begins at conception. He doesn't really believe anything.

More generally, this essay is a remarkable, if ordinary, demonstration of what conservatives really want from the Supreme Court. They simply want it to rule in their favor, full stop. Legal considerations play no role.

How else could Arkes take the position he does? The Constitution, after all, is silent on abortion and silent on the beginnings of human life. Likewise, murder is defined by statute and always has been. Not even in the most radical conception of the Constitution is it possible to say that it takes any view on either the definition or penalty for murder. But Arkes wants the Supreme Court to say so anyway.

And why not? Arkes maintains that the question of whether a fetus is a human life is a "long-settled, empirical truth" that's "found in all of the textbooks of embryology." This is sophistry. By this definition a brain-dead patient in the ICU is also a human life: it has human DNA, after all, and continues to respirate—sometimes on its own, sometimes with mechanical assistance.

But the question of whether something is a human life that deserves protection isn't—and never has been—an empirical question. It's a legal question, a religious question, and a philosophical question. Science has nothing to say about it. And since religion, law, and philosophy all disagree wildly, it's up to society to adjudicate it in all its usual messy glory. So that's what we're doing.

62 thoughts on “Spare a thought for poor Donald Trump, prisoner of abortion politics

  1. Yehouda

    "[Trump] He doesn't really believe anything."
    That it is a a little bit off. He doesn't care enough about other people to believe or not to believe anything about them (except when it affects him).

    1. FrankM

      He's a pathological narcissist. He believes he's the greatest president ever, he's the smartest person ever, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

    2. Srho

      I wouldn't presume to peek into his mind (that way madness lies), but my guess is that he'd side with the big, strong doctor against the weak, blobby fetus. Especially if the pregnant person is an 8 or hotter.

      Based on reports that he said his disabled grandnephew would've been better off dead.

  2. lower-case

    well, we have laws against destroying trees on a neighbor's property and regularly imprison people for stepping on acorns

    how is abortion any different?

      1. lower-case

        yeah, it's snark

        we don't imprison people based on the principle that a 'potential X' is the same thing as a 'fully realized X'

        wingnuts would scream bloody murder if a court said that acorns are trees, but they want the courts to declare that zygotes are people

          1. lawnorder

            The snark is pretty obvious. I don't think even the stupidest MAGAt believes that you can go to jail for stepping on an acorn.

    1. Dave_MB32

      We regularly imprison people for stepping on acorns?

      I practiced law for 20 years and this is the first I've heard of it, much less regularly.

    2. Austin

      We have laws against destroying your neighbor’s fetus too. Generally, the fetus has to be yours for you to give permission to abort it.

    3. J. Frank Parnell

      Garrett Hardin used to argue that burning someone's house down was not the same as burning a set of their plans for a house.

  3. Austin

    The bigger question is: why the hell are you reading National Review, Kevin? Does it just arrive at every doorstep for free in Orange County? Even if it does, I wouldn’t use that rag for picking up dog poop.

    1. Yehouda

      My impression is that this is actually wrong. They don't care if the woman gives birth, migrates to Mercury or dies or anything else. They are just against abortion.

      1. HokieAnnie

        Nah, they care deeply about preventing a woman from having any agency over her own life - thus anti-abortion, birth control and IVF, now saying the quiet parts out loud against no fault divorce and denigrating childless women.

      2. Scott_F

        Let's all be honest. What they are against is Sex. The problem with abortion is the same as the problem with contraception: they both allow "consequence" free sex. It's the same people who push abstinence-only sex ed, purity rings and father-daughter (super-creepy) proms.

  4. Joel

    "Arkes maintains that the question of whether a fetus is a human life is a "long-settled, empirical truth" that's "found in all of the textbooks of embryology."

    It is a long-settled, empirical truth that a human being can be generated from somatic stem cells, since it has been done with any other mammal that has been tried. Ergo, any human somatic tissue that is destroyed by, e.g., spilled blood or amputation, is ipso facto the murder of a human being by this "reasoning." Is it human? Yes. Is it alive? Yes. Does it have the potential to develop into a full adult? Yes. Hadley Arkes knows nothing about modern embryology.

  5. KJK

    First off, Hadley Arkes (whoever he is) can simply go fuck himself.

    Orange Jesus brought this about because he nominated the 3 bible thumpers who where all but guaranteed to shit can Roe v Wade, and sent the whole steaming pile of abortion legislation back to the states, whereby the Christian Nationalist in the Red states promptly brought us back to the 1950's (or 1850's?).

    The real issue is that as long as Roe v Wade stood, the GOP could rant and rave all they wanted and use abortion as a wedge issue, knowing the reality of banning abortions could not really happen. Now the Christian Nationalist genie is out of the bottle, and is a rallying call for Democrats.

    To fucking bad.

  6. shapeofsociety

    The Supreme Court is already THIS CLOSE to getting packed after the Trump immunity ruling, a nationwide abortion ban handed down by judicial fiat would be the end of it for sure.

    1. Coby Beck

      This is wildy over-optimistic. Reminds me of the 10 or so times in Trump's first candidacy we had near 100% unanimity in the punditocracy that "this time, Trump has gone too far and will lose for sure."

      WRT SCOTUS, we have already skipped past a stolen seat, a second stolen seat, several impeachable revalations about current and soon-to-be-confirmed jurists, and probably a half dozen jaw-droppingly lawless decisions.

      "One more time and we'll do something, I mean it!"

      They're not too concerned and I don't blame them.

  7. Yikes

    Until you get to totalitarianism, politics is aspirational. Everyone knows that whatever any politician says they will try to do, whatever they will try to accomplish, the operative word is always "try."

    Dems generally, for sure the political class, understand this so thoroughly that its very close to some sort of natural law.

    But come on, Trump has pulled back the curtain on what his base actually believes, and what they will actually do when they get a chance.

    Abortion is probably going to win us this election. It should have won the last ten in a row, at least. Until the 20 to 30 million people in this country who believe protectable life begins at conception die off, those people are just lying in wait to prosecute abortion as murder. Not for laughs, BUT BECAUSE THEY BELEIVE ITS MURDER. They are not making some sort of argument about it, for them its not up for any sort of debate.

    Look at Kevin asking how this guy "could take the position he does?" That may be the politically dumbest question of all time.

    1. FrankM

      If you ever spend time talking to them, you'll quickly discover that NOTHING they believe is up for debate. Their opinions are facts. If the actual facts contradict their opinions, the facts must be wrong. This is the genesis of "alternative facts".

  8. realrobmac

    I'm sure the Court will rule in the next year or two as this douche wants it to, that zygotes are human beings and entitled to all the protections of the Constitution. This has always been the endgame for these zealots and will do wonders to keep uppity women under control.

  9. jeffreycmcmahon

    As recent as the 90s the National Review wasn't this much of a moronic party rag, right? It used to have writers of some substance even when what they were writing was utterly predictable?

    1. Joel

      The National Buckley has always been GOP/right-wing. But Buckley did bury the John Birch Society. Now that Buckley is dead, the JBS has re-invented itself as MAGA and has taken over the GOP, so there's no place else for the Buckley Review to turn.

    2. kennethalmquist

      Presidential candidate George McGovern lost 49 states in the 1972 election. Prior to then, the right was on the defensive. The National Review had to have writers of some substance because they were fighting against the dominant world view. After the election, it was liberals who were on the defensive, and conservatives could afford intellectual laziness. The other thing that happened is that Reagan’s tax cuts for the wealthy didn’t work as promised. Federal revenues didn’t increase, and the money didn’t trickle down to any significant degree. It’s hard to be intellectually rigorous when you are committed to defending a policy that doesn’t work.

      I don’t remember what the National Review was writing in the 1990’s, but it could have been similar to what it was writing 20 years earlier. I’d guess that by 2000, Fox News personalities like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly had more influence than The National Review, and eventually The National Review ended up going with the flow.

  10. bbleh

    What's amusing is, on the one hand they want the issue "returned to the states," and they want "unelected judges" to stop "usurping the political process" ... UNTIL they want everything the other way around.

    ALL their arguments are bad-faith, INCLUDING the supposedly "moral" ones about "sanctity of life." (As I believe Jesse Jackson noted, they profess to be concerned about the life of a "child" BEFORE birth, but they VERY evidently are NOT so AFTER birth.) The whole "pro-life" con is about religiostic authoritarianism, and in particular control of women and female sexuality, and nothing more. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar or a fool.

    1. FrankM

      The "pro-life" people are also oddly unconcerned with the thousands of Palestinians dying in Gaza. Apparently a clump of a couple dozen cells must be protected at all costs, but living, breathing people...nah. You can kill them as long as they're in the "out" group.

      1. bbleh

        Not to mention the children of asylum-seekers separated from their families, held in cages, and ultimately lost to them for good in a bureaucratic screwup. Or or or.

        The faux-moralism of the right-wingers, ESPECIALLY the Christianists (like "Islamist" -- all form, no substance), comes close to making me physically sick.

    1. lower-case

      likewise, mr 'free speech maximalist' thinks advertisers should have no choice but to send him money

      WICHITA FALLS, Tex. (AP) — Elon Musk’s social media platform X has sued a group of advertisers, alleging that a “massive advertiser boycott” deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws.

      The company formerly known as Twitter filed the lawsuit Tuesday in a federal court in Texas against the World Federation of Advertisers and member companies Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted.

    2. lawnorder

      Musk may have done something smart here. By bribing Trump, he has ensured that the government will continue to give at least grudging support to EVs regardless of who wins the election. In his own unpleasant way I believe Musk is an idealist; his two main projects, Tesla and SpaceX, are both focused firmly on the future of humanity and not just on making as much money as possible, although Tesla certainly has made Musk a pile of money. He's now taken steps to secure that future against political ill winds.

      1. Yehouda

        How does the "idealist" fit with the Xitter syndrom? He is not only messing up Twitter, he personally posts bulshit of the worst kind.
        "Asshole" seems to be a better description. Maybe "top-class asshole".

  11. Cycledoc

    And don’t forget the founders who knew nothing of ova, sperm, zygotes, implantation. And knew nothing of pregnancy until several weeks in, and by that time 30-50% of fertilized eggs and implants had spontaneously aborted— god’s will I guess.

    And our oh so religiously based Supreme Court applies their male-dominated Catholic faith to this issue over the protests of those of us who value freedom from religion and support a woman’s right to choose. Yes the same Catholic Church that has been guilty of abusing women and children on every continent. The same church that is still paying its victims for the horrors they endured. That Catholic Church.

  12. zic

    Somewhere, out there, beyond the walls of the uterus, there's a woman.

    Can we please try and not forget about her?

  13. Doctor Jay

    That a fetus is a human being is unsupported by any empirical or objective standard. It can't be. It's a matter of belief. One of the more amusing/infuriating thing about Alito's opinion was that Alito knows this, and so dances around the issue. (Which is why the writer cited in the OP is mad about it).

    He says things like "we all know why abortion is different from these other issues, such as contraception, and other routine medical treatments." But he never said what it is "we all know". Extraordinary.

    I don't know why the Establishment Clause lawsuits I heard of haven't reached the Court yet. I feel they have a very solid case.

    1. lawnorder

      That a fetus is a human being is not even really a matter of belief; it's a matter of definition. Pro-choicers and anti-abortionists use different dictionairies to define "human being".

  14. Josef

    By appointing the very justices that dealt him the hand, it seems he's more to blame than they are. Since when has Donald Trump cared what anyone else wants? As if he listens to any group let alone people who are pro choice. What a ridiculous attempt to portray Trump as a victim.

  15. memyselfandi

    ""long-settled, empirical truth" that's "found in all of the textbooks of embryology."" The author says this because like most conservatives, he is a complete dishonorable scumbag. Almost every textbook on embryology says the exact opposite. And the only one I know that is written by a pro-life zealot, is factually false in half a dozen ways when it claims that embryos are a human life. Claiming a fertilized egg represents a unique human being, when it actually represents the potential of at least 8 unique human beings.

    1. Joel

      Not sure how you claim that a fertilized egg represents a unique human being when it can go on to split, creating *two* unique human beings. They're called monozygotic twins, and they are described in all textbooks of embryology.

  16. KenSchulz

    Thank you, KD, for bringing up brain death. It is the non-controversial standard in every US jurisdiction (except for the brief kerfuffle over the Schiavo case, when a few politicians thought they might gain some support by creating an issue). I have long believed that a ‘brain life’ standard could win majority support; there is already majority support for termination of pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, or those threatening the life or health or fertility of the woman, or cases of non-viable fetuses.

  17. Dana Decker

    KD: "By this definition a brain-dead patient in the ICU is also a human life: it has human DNA, after all, and continues to respirate—sometimes on its own, sometimes with mechanical assistance."

    Also tumors, but for some reason pro-lifers don't care about them.

  18. spatrick

    Trump and Vance are dealing with a bad hand that has been dealt them by the Supreme Court....

    A Supreme Court they helped to create with the expressed purpose of repealing Roe. I guess you just can't get good help these days....

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