Are there a few wise Republicans left to take up Ramesh’s advice (currently on the homepage)?
High on any congressional Republican agenda in 2023 should be a ban on abortions late in pregnancy. That’s not what most Republicans in Congress want to hear. They want to deflect any questions about the issue by saying it’s a matter for states to resolve. They’ve seen discouraging polling. They don’t want to be part of a hot and sometimes ugly debate.
But passivity should not be confused for wisdom. The abortion debate will go better for pro-lifers if congressional Republicans join it. It will go better for them, too.
At the moment, the policy debate is stuck on the aspects of the issue where there’s either a majority against restrictions (abortions in cases of rape, incest, and medical complications) or no solid majority opinion. (Polls give conflicting findings depending on whether they ask about abortions early in pregnancy generally or let respondents opt for allowing them only in the hardest cases.) The debate dwells on every dumb or impolitic remark any pro-life legislator or activist makes anywhere in the country. Meanwhile, abortions late in pregnancy remain legal in much of the U.S. Most polls show that majorities, including many voters who consider themselves pro-choice, think those abortions should be prohibited. Pro-lifers need to direct attention to this point. A push for federal legislation is the only way to do it.
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Republicans can change the abortion conversation by doing something as simple as taking up once again a proposal that almost all of them have already voted to put into federal law: the 20-week ban.
It is the least they can do, and the least they should be asked.
Read the rest, if you haven’t already. It should be the stuff of consensus. But there are few incentives for that in our reality-TV political age.