One Year Later

The GOP is moderating on abortion post-Dobbs.

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A woman holds a pro-life sign before in Clearwater, Florida, on Saturday, November 5, 2022. (Thomas Simonetti/Washington Post/Getty Images)

On Wednesday morning Semafor reported that one of the country’s most influential pro-life groups is turning up the heat on Republican politicians. 

Enough with the mealy-mouthed dodges on questions about abortion, a new memo from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America warns. It’s past time for the GOP to go on offense.

The party needs to get serious about a … 15-week federal abortion ban.

A 15-week ban is not what the group has traditionally advocated, the New York Times’ Jane Coaston pointed out. Cruise on over to the “About” page on their website and you’ll find this uncompromising mission statement in large print at the top: “SBA Pro-Life America’s mission is to end abortion by electing national leaders and advocating for laws that save lives, with a special calling to promote pro-life women leaders.”

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Take what you can get. Take the bad with the good. The end of Roe is still a great victory. No it isn’t time for pro-lifers to rest on our laurels, but it’s a step in the right direction. Public opinion will change. It always does.

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  2. Maria Elena Franco

    I don’t get why a group of people want to impose their preference (political, religious, social or moral) on everyone else. That applies to both parties.

    Shouldn’t our politicians (both sides) be working together to create laws that we can all live with? Or is it more about “how do I win so I can impose my views (political, religious , social or moral) and laws on everyone else even if they don’t think like me?”

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      Chuckgold

      The answer to your first question, in my view;

      A government of justice should protect its citizens, especially the innocent and the defenseless. Most pro-life advocates see human life as precious, whether born or unborn. Ending a life is permanent, the ultimate child abuse. Other moral and social issues may cause harm, but mainly by the choice of participants. Same-sex marriages, or gender issues, for instance, would be voluntary by the participants, and not necessarily permanent. But aborting a human life is irreversible, and the victim has no say in the matter.

      Second question;

      Yes, elected officials should work together for the good of their constituents. Unjust taking of life is usually unlawful and punished, based upon the circumstances. Pre-meditated murder would draw a more harsh sentence than an accidental killing. The sticking point is that voters do not agree on when human life deserves protection by law.

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  3. Avatar photo
    Ray Salemi

    Our friend David French wrote recently of how the abortion rate was lowest under Barack Obama . . "And, Trump’s judicial nominations notwithstanding, a very long pro-life trend reversed itself during his presidency."

    No surprise there.

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  4. Vitaly.Furman

    I understand why an organization like Susan B. Anthony List would support a 15-week ban as voters not only in closely divided purple states like Wisconsin but ruby red states (Kansas, Kentucky) vote for pro-abortion measures. But I think that for Republican politicians, a federal 15-week ban is a trap. Most voters understand that this would really be a 15-week ban on blue and purple states. Running on a 15-week ban for a Senate in a purple state would pretty much make the candidate unelectable. At this time, a 15-week ban does not have votes to pass in the Senate. I could see how Republicans would be under enormous pressure to end the legislative filibuster if they win the Senate and the Presidency, and sign the 15-week ban into law (not that they would necessarily have 50 votes to pass it - Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are still there). Nick had described how Democrats would repeal the law the first time they would have the opportunity to do so, creating huge instability in the legal system. Even more important, most of the blue states will not enforce such a law, for example, refusing to cooperate with the Feds.
    It does not matter that public opinion polls show support for a 15-week ban. As Sarah says, issue polling is notoriously unreliable; but also, this time, the intensity is on the pro-choice side. On the merits, a 15-week ban would have to be crafted similarly to the laws in Western Europe. Most of these countries have 14-15 week bans but they allow for lots of exceptions; and abortion is readily available BEFORE the 15 weeks. None of this would apply here. There are cases in which women make a decision to terminate the pregnancy because of a horrible pre-natal diagnosis; and in many cases, such diagnosis arrives after 15 weeks.

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  5. Brandon Hartley

    A 15 week ban is just as untenable as a 15 week allowance. It isn't a compromise in any fair sense of the word. It is an attempt to twist Democrats into opposing it so that then they can absurdly claim that dems want to kill babies at 38 weeks. Nonsense. An actual compromise would be, obviously, it's legal in all states up to 15 weeks and legal after that. Or, if you prefer more federalism with your compromise: it's legal everywhere up to 12 weeks and illegal everywhere after 20, and states can refine that line between as they see fit. Next time Dems control the house, I see them passing "legal up to 20 weeks" bills and forcing Republicans to oppose it because there's no restriction paired with it. Then they'll yell at moderate GOP polls (and center right journalistic sites) for being pro-life extremists demanding that raped 10 year olds carry to term. Until a party proposes both an allowance and a restriction at the same time, this is just shameless politicking. One more "why solve a problem if you lose the issue" topic.

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  6. Potratzg

    I find abortion to be repugnant. Fortunately (for me, anyway) my mother did too. At 41 years of age, already blessed with seven children her doctor advised her to have an abortion due to her advanced maternal age (in 1974 this was a thing) and so she could better tend to her other children at home. She thanked the doctor for his advice and found another doctor.
    The decision to end a pregnancy is a personal one, however wrong it may be. It should not be illegal. To me, the issue is grounded in how much power the state gets to have over my body. Many of my conservative friends tell me the constitution and the role of government is to protect property rights. Well, there isn't anything you possess more fundamental than your own body. Compelling a person to have a child, sentencing someone to be executed, or preventing a person from ending their own life on their terms ought not be within the purview of government authority.
    One could make the argument that the constitution ensures that "your rights end at my nose" and thus the fetus, blastocyst, embryo (or simply the unborn child) has rights just like anyone else and they cannot be overridden by the mother's rights. I don't buy that argument. A pregnancy is a blessing and an obligation to another (for both parents). Some people cannot accept their blessings or live up to their obligations and the results can be tragic. The sentiment that "there oughta be a law against that" takes the easy path of doling out punishment and judgement instead of doing the hard work of persuasion and living up to one's societal obligations. So, to reduce this to crass politics, Nikki Haley has the right of it, be genuinely pro-life, not just pro-birth.

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    1. BPhillips

      Well said

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  7. Ken Motamed

    A federal abortion ban makes no sense. Even if abortion is viewed as murder, it's a state matter not federal.

    It's interesting to see the pro-life movement having given up on persuasion is now resorting to coercion. And what if a federal ban was legislated and blue states didn't honor it? How dangerous would that be to the country's unity?

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  8. Ken Motamed

    "A 15-week ban smells like the Compromise of 1850, a desperate political solution designed to temporarily settle some intractable moral dispute that ultimately satisfies no one." No one being ultimately satisfied is the hallmark of a pluralistic democracy.

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  9. Valerie Thornton

    I generally like your columns, but this one uncovered a region of disagreement. To e brief, I don't think a blastosphere, embryo, or fetus is necessarily a baby. There are so many arguments about this that maybe the best we can do is agree that decent, honest. well informed people may differ. To illustrate why I believe as I do, I'll share (in general) what I say in my dnr requests is that I don't want doctors to stop treating me if I can't communicate my wishes to them but still maintain social relationships with other people however that may be done. I think women create a relationship with a fetus at times. That's a real relationship and should be considered, but is impossible to legislate.

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    1. Ken Motamed

      Baby or not, the fetus is human life. And procreation is not a women's issue; the fetus has a father who should have equal say in whether this new life is terminated.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Kmregan7

        Procreation isn't just a woman's issue. But pregnancy is. It's not the father that has to actually do the work. HIS health and life aren't on the line. So no....the father should not have equal say. That just means the father has control over a woman's body. We've finally, finally, gotten away from that mentality.

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        Citizen60

        I call BS. The man has the opportunity before sex to either commit to a fetus/child (hello engagement or marriage), or keep it in his pants.
        Once you’ve made your deposit in the bank, you have no say in how it’s used.

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        1. Avatar photo
          Ed

          "Once you’ve made your deposit in the bank, you have no say in how it’s used."

          The kind of reasoning that could easily be turned into, "And no responsibility for what comes after."

          Do we really want fathers to just walk away with no responsibility for children? Because that is what this logic says. If I have no "say," then why should I be held accountable for anything?

          Abortion is a complex issue. Another life is involved, depending upon when we define that life to begin. Women have a greater burden to bear, and they justly want to have more of a say.
          But at some point, that "fetus" becomes a child. And aborting a child is not simply a woman's "choice."

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            Citizen60

            No womb can hold a child. A fetus becomes a baby.

            Men can keep it in their pants, or get hormonal therapy, or have a vasectomy.

            Otherwise, “you make it, you pay for it.”
            Unfortunately, too many men don’t feel that way, and too many states don’t force a man to pay family support.

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        Mudskipper

        Procreation might not be solely a woman's issue, but pregnancy certainly is. No father, for example, should have the right to demand a woman risk her life to carry a baby to term.

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        1. Dadgum41

          EXACTLY.

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  10. AJLiberty

    On naked politics, the GOP had the opportunity to claim the middle by supporting a 15wk ban and pressing Democrats to acquiesce or shoot for something more "extreme". However, there are bright red states that want out-and-out bans...and have the votes to get them. If you believe it's a state's prerogative to decide, then let states decide. As usual I don't think the GOP had really planned for post-Dobbs reality. Personally, I agree with Nikki Haley that the GOP needs to focus on changing hearts and minds by focusing on things like making it easier to adopt and financially making it easier for women to choose life. This is hard work and may not immediately move poll numbers in the GOP's favor, but it has a shot. Double-downing on stricter rules is just generating backlash. Yes, laws need to settle a bit, but in the end, this is about changing opinions, not just muscling them.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Citizen60

      One way to change hearts and minds is to dramatically lower the US maternal mortality rate—one if, if not the, highest in the developed world.
      Paid family leave.
      Return-to-job guarantee
      Childcare availability and financial support.

      Making adoption easier? Right up there with Alioto’s statement that ending abortion will “increase the number of domestic babies for adoption”. 400,000 kids are in foster care—at least half are adoptable today.

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      Kmregan7

      The problem is that the anti-abortion movement focused solely on Roe and didn't DO the hard work. Or, they tried and tried and found that most people are not nearly as anti-abortion as they thought. And the more these out and out bans, and the punishment that comes after they are violated, are shown as what they are: hurting, even killing, women and then punishing them after (from fines and losing licenses for the doctors to life in prison or even the death penalty - in Texas for the first and I believe SC proposed legislation for the death penalty for abortions) the more people will turn toward a pro-choice position. Even if they themselves would never get an abortion and even believe it's morally wrong.

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      1. AJLiberty

        Some do walk the walk. I have a colleague who is on adoption #3. There are religious organizations that do volunteer time and money to help with crisis pregnancies. I'm not sure that they get enough credit and visibility. Again, I think it would be wise for the GOP to go this route, emphasize the success stories....even though that might not tell the entire story....and let women tell their story. Stridency doesn't work and only creates stridency on the other side.

        One of the challenges is that the culture has changed....and I'm not sure that we can legislate our way back to 1950. This is about persuasion and the awful reality that sometimes it won't work. It's part of what liberty is about.

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      Citizen60

      You change hearts and minds with action: paid maternity leave with job guarantees. Money—yes, direct payments—for shelter and childcare. Universal pre-K so those who need training or get an education can.
      Stop talking about “the sacred value of life,” and start paying for demonstrating it.

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    4. Ken Motamed

      Totally agree, AJ.

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