Abortion draws battle line on left

The abortion issue clearly is drawing a battle line on the political left. If this holds, then the left will run even more fanatical candidates this fall than before. And when they do that in swing districts, they lose.

Latest on the abortion issue

The Roe v. Wade leak has focused the country’s attention on abortion as all the Marches for Life never could. When leftists protest, they burn things, throw things, and often hurt people. In contrast, conservatives march peacefully. The Marches for Life always began near the Washington Monument with big rallies, then moved up Constitution Avenue, rounded the Capitol, turned onto First Avenue Northeast, and finished before the Supreme Court. No one – ever – tried to enter the Courthouse.

The reaction to the leak of Justice Samuel A. Alito’s first draft opinion shows that stark contrast. For reference, people can find it here:

In contrast to a March for Life came a March for Death. Even before the story broke about the leak, fences sprang up around the Courthouse. Shortly afterward, a mob gathered. Those in that mob actually called for the Court’s abolition, as well as that of the Senate filibuster.

Why does that last matter? Because in the current term of Congress, the House of Representatives has already passed a bill to codify abortion. HR 3755, the Women’s Health Protection Act, gives abortion providers a statutory right to practice their craft. This Act would protect this right up to “fetal viability,” the same as the old Roe standard.

This Act passed the House on September 24, 2021, after the Supreme Court sustained the Texas Heartbeat Act. But this bill has stalled in the Senate. The last time the Senate tried for cloture was February 28, 2022. It failed, 46-48.

The politics of abortion take a fanatical turn

Next Wednesday, the Senate will try again. But no one expects them to succeed. Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), of course, will never agree to abolish the filibuster. Beyond that, Senators Manchin and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) oppose this bill on principle. Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) won’t sign on, because this bill specifically overrides laws protecting the conscience of doctors, nurses, and other health care staff who want nothing to do with abortion. To address that, these two Senators have introduced their own legislation with a “conscience clause.”

More interesting than this, HR 3755 barely passed the House. The vote was 218-211, with six abstentions and absences – and one Democrat voting against it. That Democrat is Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas-28th), who represents Laredo, Texas – on the border.

So Mr. Cuellar has become the target of abortion fanatics. He has a challenger, one Jessica Cisneros, who almost “primaried” him in 2020. This year, she forced him into a runoff in the March 1 Texas primary. That runoff will run on May 24.

The abortion fanatical wing of the Party have thrown their support behind Cisneros.

while also demanding an end to the filibuster and an immediate expansion of the Court.

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), House Democratic Whip, traveled to Texas to campaign for Cuellar. The fanatics told him not to, but he came anyway.

From primaries to the general election

Pundits everywhere have said they don’t expect the Roe v. Wade leak to affect Midterms. Republicans will still win, because the economy is in the tank, Joe Biden put it there, and everybody knows it.

But the rise of the abortion fanatics will complicate further the Democrats’ attempts to stop their losses. The House leadership clearly knows the stakes, which is why Clyburn went to Laredo to support Cuellar. But the abortion fanatics are playing for their own stakes. And they either don’t care what happens to their Party’s majorities in the House and the Senate, or they have deluded themselves into believing they can win.

News flash. At least one, maybe two generations of abortion fanatics aborted their children after Roe became the law of the land. But while they aborted their children, conservative mothers kept theirs. Those children have grown up, and they vote. They voted for Donald Trump, and he kept one conservative voice on the Court and replaced a swing voice and a liberal voice with two conservative voices. That’s how Justice Alito could draw an assignment to write a majority opinion throwing out Roe.

More to the point, the children of the abortion fanatics of one or two generations past, cannot vote, because their mothers would not permit them to exist. To be sure, some of those mothers did, but not enough. So if they nominate fanatical candidates going into this Midterms, they will lose even worse than already destined.