Charles Cooke calls this an ideological Turing test, i.e. a question whose answer reveals how plausible it is that Trump really is who he claims to be. The standard answer from nearly all serious pro-lifers is that it’s the abortionist, not his patient, who should be sanctioned if and when abortion is banned. The March of Life explains why:
“Mr. Trump’s comment today is completely out of touch with the pro-life movement and even more with women who have chosen such a sad thing as abortion,” said Jeanne Mancini, President of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund. “Being pro-life means wanting what is best for the mother and the baby. Women who choose abortion often do so in desperation and then deeply regret such a decision. No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion. This is against the very nature of what we are about. We invite a woman who has gone down this route to consider paths to healing, not punishment.”
Ted Cruz, when he’s inevitably asked about this now, will give some variation of that same response. Trump, whom his conservative critics suspect of being an opportunist on abortion rather than committed to the cause, went a different route. You can almost see the wheels turning in his head here: He knows, as a political matter, that he can’t let Cruz get to his right on abortion. Republicans will let him slide on a lot — a lot — but if he gives them reason to think he’s BSing them on an issue at the very core of social conservatism, it could give Cruz the break he needs to take off. And so, when he gets the question from Matthews about what to do with women who insist on having abortions in a hypothetical future where the practice is banned, he goes with his gut — and his gut is “stay to the right.” So … sure, let’s punish women for abortion. This is the message the party’s carrying into the general election against the first woman major-party nominee, huh? By a guy who’s already having major problems polling among women, no less.
It’s easy to understand how an amateur would stumble into this answer, writes Matt Lewis, but why would you want to nominate an amateur?
In truth, like the notion that there should be exceptions for rape and incest, the notion that only the abortion doctor (not the woman having the abortion) should face penalties, is inconsistent with the notion that “abortion is murder.”
Yet these political compromises are necessary in order to cobble together a palatable and defensible (if admittedly inconsistent) public policy position that might someday actually be able to win the argument in mainstream America.
Part of the goal is to remove the ability for pro-choicers to demagogue the issue by scaring vulnerable women. Now, thanks to Trump, that’s back on the table.
Trump’s already trying to walk it back even though the townhall with Matthews from which this was clipped hasn’t aired yet:
Hillary’s already attacking him over it. So is Team Cruz, as you’ll see in the second clip below. Trump can run from it but it’s on tape and every down-ballot Republican will wear it now if he’s the nominee. And the best part, as one Twitter pal said, is that Trump will eventually (“eventually” as in “probably within the next few hours”) deny that he ever said it to begin with. Still think this is all part of a master strategy or could it be that he really is winging it?
But I have noticed how they punish any deviation from their policy positions with many other candidates.
Crossing the pro-lifers is generally fatal to a candidate. Trump hadn't crossed them in this campaign until now.
Generally, the pro-lifers remain friendly and open to the idea of even rabidly former pro-abortion candidates like Trump or Giuliani. But one major deviation and they do turn on that new friend. And they have their own entire communications network outside the usual media, all female-dominated. You don't see it coming until it hits your candidate over the head like a 2x4.
We'll see if Trump did offend them deeply. It won't take long for the polls to show it.
"If Trump is elected, he will have the opportunity to appoint a pro-life justice to the Supremes."
He can submit his choice to the Senate, but that's about it. If Obama had the power to appoint a Supreme Court justice, Garland would be hearing cases.
When did he cross them -- when he was for or against punishing women who murder their babies?
This particular policy item was hotly debated over the years in the pro-life organizations. Overwhelmingly, they reject any punish-the-woman policy.
In the meantime, the Dims constantly accuse us of wanting to punish the woman even though we have denied it for decades. They still use it as part of their War On Women strategy.
Certainly, the Dims will use this against Trump if he is the nominee but they will also use it against all GOP candidates.
This is why you've never heard any credible GOP candidate ever suggest a punish-the-woman policy. And that is why I think the women who quietly dominate the pro-life movement nationally may react very negatively toward Trump. This argument is long over. Until Trump opened this can of worms by running his big blabbermouth yesterday. Trump's gift to the Lefties and their propaganda. Less remarked upon is Trump mentioning that any change in abortion law would inevitably result in the return of back-alley abortions, yet another pernicious myth that will certainly rile the pro-lifers.
The nicest thing you can say of Trump's remark is he was ignorant. That's not a very positive quality.
If you're looking for signs that Trump has truly riled the pro-lifers, I'd watch for any statements about Trump's remarks by Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum, the various state and national Right To Life orgs and the newer Susan B. Anthony List activists (the younger generation of pro-life women).
They cited a position dating back a century that the woman is never to be punished.
“Mattie Brinkerhoff, a leader of the women’s suffrage movement, said that when a woman undergoes an abortion it is evidence she has been ‘greatly wronged.’ The Revolution, the newspaper owned and operated by Susan B. Anthony published an op-ed asserting that, on abortion, “thrice guilty is he who, for selfish gratification, heedless of her prayers, indifferent to her fate, drove her to the desperation which impels her to the crime.’ Alice Paul was known to have called abortion ‘the ultimate exploitation of women.’
“We have never advocated, in any context, for the punishment of women who undergo abortion.
“As a convert to the pro-life movement, Mr. Trump sees the reality of the horror of abortion – the destruction of an innocent human life – which is legal in our country up until the moment of birth. But let us be clear: punishment is solely for the abortionist who profits off of the destruction of one life and the grave wounding of another.”
It sounds mild enough but that is pretty aggressive for SBA activists.
"Overwhelmingly, they reject any punish-the-woman policy."
I didn't know that. I'd like to know what kind of convoluted thinking leads then to conclude that if a woman pays a doctor to murder her unborn child at her request, he should be sent to prison but she walks away scot-free.
Maybe that's how they keep there membership numbers up. Kind of, "We're pro-life ... but not really".
"The nicest thing you can say of Trump's remark is he was ignorant. That's not a very positive quality."
I'd simply say he was caught off-guard by being asked a hypothetical about an issue everyone considers settled law. It didn't help that Matthews was looking for his gotcha moment, so he phrased the question around whether the woman should be punished.
I've been following politics a long time, and I've never heard this "punish the woman" approach before. Certainly if the abortion decision is turned over to the states, won't each state decide that, not the President?
Yes, Trump should have been prepared for that f**ked up hypothetical but, to his credit, he immediately corrected his position.
I've been following politics a long time, and I've never heard this "punish the woman" approach before. Certainly if the abortion decision is turned over to the states, won't each state decide that, not the President?
Yes, Trump should have been prepared for that f**ked up hypothetical but, to his credit, he immediately corrected his position.
I was a vice-president 10 years with the largest state pro-life group in the country. I remember when the issue of who should be punished was hotly debated.
Truth Is Still Truth Even If You Don't Believe It.
So you really do want to execute the mother but only give the abortionist a prison sentence.
The proper law is for the mother, the abortion doctor, the attending nurse and the knowing financiers to be treated as first degree murderers, and for those who knowingly drive the victim and his mother to the clinic to be aborted and the billing staff to all be charged with being accessories to murder.
Abortion is the premeditated murder of an innocent child, and the perpetrators, arrangers and other accessories should be treated the same as any other first degree murder case.
The proper law is for the mother, the abortion doctor, the attending nurse and the knowing financiers to be treated as first degree murderers, and for those who knowingly drive the victim and his mother to the clinic to be aborted and the billing staff to all be charged with being accessories to murder.
You are an extremist, far outside the Catholic pro-life movement.
Abortion is the premeditated murder of an innocent child, and the perpetrators, arrangers and other accessories should be treated the same as any other first degree murder case.
Don't expect a reasoned response from the Trump-haters.
He can submit his choice to the Senate, but that's about it. If Obama had the power to appoint a Supreme Court justice, Garland would be hearing cases.
No, there's more to it than that.
If the Senate refuses to hear the cases, then the President can put the Justice on the Supreme Court, or in the Cabinet Secretary position ANYWAY, as a recess appointment.
The recess appointment has full authority and all powers, s/he's just not permanent. The Senate can then remove the recess appointment by rejecting him/her - which requires the hearings and the votes - but if they don't reject the recess appointment, s/he sits and executes the job until the role is filled by a permanent appointment, or the recess appointment is rejected.
Note that the recess appointment does not cease to sit when the President leaves. S/he sits there until the end of the next Senate calendar year, unless earlier rejected by the Senate or replaced by an approved appointment.
Tradition dictates that cabinet secretaries and recess appointments resign when their President leaves office, but they don't have to. They can force the new President to fire them (if they're cabinet Secretaries), or sit in the job until the Senate rejects them or the new President appoints and get approved by the Senate a new permanent appointment.
So, the Senate can DELAY the appointment of a justice until it is in recess, but the President has the absolute power to fill any vacancies for a year during the Senate recess.
So, if our politics remain in World War I gridlock, and nobody can get approved, the President can enforce his policies through the courts quite effectively by appointing judges who will serve for one year only, and whom he can reappoint each year until the Senate moves.
Likewise, if the Congress is so divided that it can't pass laws, the President can simply rule the country by Executive Order, which only the courts could block - and if s/he controls the court through recess appointments (a recess appointee is much more tightly controlled by the President, because s/he has no lifetime appointment and no guarantee of being renominated, or not being withdrawn, if s/he does not do the President's billing.
The Supreme Court could resist this for awhile, by delaying its calendar. But over time, a President facing an elderly Supreme Court - say, now, could end up having three or four recess appointments sitting on the court, with full power, but serving at the pleasure of the President, who can always withdraw their appointments right up until they are approved.
The Senate can play hardball with delay, but the President can trump the hardball, and if it becomes trench warfare, over time the President will gain effective executive control of the Supreme Court through recess appointments that he can remove from the court himself.
Once the Senate adjourns for the election, Obama will appoint the recess appointment and the Court will have a five-justice Democrat majority for a year, or until the Senate ratifies a new Justice.
The only way the Republicans can win this war is by electing Trump. If they won't. then the Democrats will run the table this time, control the Supreme Court and the Presidency, and enact their entire agenda. Without the judiciary, a divided Congress cannot control the President - and if they try, the Supreme Court can strike down their acts as unconstitutional.
This election is for all the marbles. With Trump, the Republicans can win. If they take him out, the Democrats will be ruling for the rest of our lives.
"I remember when the issue of who should be punished was hotly debated."
Argued, yes. Debated?
I don't see the debate points for excusing the mother. Everything from the beginning to the bloody end is her decision. Not even the biological father has any say-so. Women aren't "victims". Not when they're the ones making all the choices.
Women should at least be honest and say that they're pro-life ... unless they want an abortion.
Before abortion became legal ,women were not punished as criminals for having an abortion. They were considered victims The abortionist was charged .
Of course. But Trump and LF's Trumpkins can't be bothered to read anything.
The booboisie, following a witless ape riding a gold-plated escalator.
It's the willful ignorance that is so striking. It takes so little time to discover the facts. It isn't like you have to read long dense books to know the history of pro-life reasonably well. But that is too much effort for Trump and the Trumpkins.
Please study the employment and interpretation of the conditional syllogism: If A, then B. If, and only if A, then B. Etc. You talk like a man with a wooden asshole.
You talk like a man with a wooden head. The if conditions are totally immaterial to the issue. The ifs were present in both of his statements, the first one and then the 180 he did a few hours later. WTF don't you understand about this? He waffled big time and it is costing him big time. He also is dragging down the REP Party and virtually handing all three branches of the Fed government to the DRats. Perhaps you think we will live long and prosper when this happens?
