After Abortion Losses, Pro-Life Groups Fear GOP Retreat

Plus: The Biden campaign begins targeting Trump by name.

By and
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Happy Monday! Andrew’s catching the bus to New Hampshire today—podcast recommendations are welcome.

Up to Speed

  • Tim Scott is dropping out of the presidential race. The South Carolina senator acknowledged on Fox News Sunday evening that he has failed to catch on with Republican voters, telling an apparently shocked host Trey Gowdy that “I don’t think they’re saying ‘no,’ but I do think they’re saying ‘not now.’” Scott added that he does not plan to make an endorsement in the primary, where former President Donald Trump enjoys an overwhelming lead. He becomes the second major candidate to drop out, following former Vice President Mike Pence, who left the race last month.  
  • The news comes as some surprise—Scott’s war chest was not yet empty, although he’d been rapidly spending it down. But the writing had been on the wall for some time: Scott had failed to break out of the low single digits in polling, had been outshone on the debate stage and in surveys by fellow South Carolinian Nikki Haley, and was not guaranteed to qualify for the fourth GOP debate next month in Alabama. His Senate Republican coworkers, initially very optimistic about his candidacy, had in recent weeks struck a more mournful tone that he wasn’t breaking out. And his recent hard pivot to Iowa was widely seen as a desperate move: “It’s last gasp, Hail Mary territory and that’s the obvious message it sends,” veteran Iowa GOP strategist David Kochel told The Dispatch last week.
  • With government funding set to run out Friday night, House Speaker Mike Johnson is facing the same basic arithmetic problem that cost then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy his job just weeks ago: He needs the House to pass a short-term spending bill to avoid an economically and politically costly shutdown, but he’ll likely need to rely on at least some Democratic votes to do it. As an olive branch to the hard-right faction that likes short-term continuing resolutions least, Johnson has organized his proposal around a “laddered” mechanism backed by the House Freedom Caucus. Instead of funding the whole government at current levels for another short period of time, the laddered CR would break funding into two tranches, with one expiring January 19 and the other expiring February 2. 
  • Nikki Haley is planning a $10 million ad buy in Iowa and New Hampshire as she moves to establish herself as the consensus alternative to former President Donald Trump in the race for the Republican nomination, the Associated Press reported Monday. The television blitz is set to begin the first week of December. Haley, a former South Carolina governor and ex-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, must get past Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis if she is going to have a clear shot at Trump, the overwhelming frontrunner. Meanwhile, the super PAC supporting DeSantis, Never Back Down, has canceled advertising originally scheduled for November, shifting that television buy to January. The first nominating contest, the Iowa caucuses, is set for January 15.
  • Chris Christie traveled to Israel over the weekend. The former New Jersey governor toured sites that were the subject of the Hamas terrorists’ October 7 attack that targeted Israelis for torture, murder, and kidnapping, and which left more than 1,400 dead. Christie is the first Republican presidential contender to travel to Israel since the war began last month.
  • Rep. Abigail Spanberger is running for Virginia governor in 2025 and will retire from the House next year, she announced Monday. The Democrat was first elected to Congress in 2018 when she flipped a Republican-leaning district anchored in suburban Richmond. Spanberger, a former CIA clandestine agent, was a driving force behind House Democrats’ 2019 decision to impeach then-President Donald Trump after it was discovered he threatened to withhold military aid from Ukraine unless Kyiv provided him dirt on future President Joe Biden.

Pro-Lifers Fear GOP Turn to Center on Abortion

Former President Donald Trump at the Susan B. Anthony 11th Annual Campaign for Life Gala at the National Building Museum on May 22, 2018, in Washington. (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump at the Susan B. Anthony 11th Annual Campaign for Life Gala at the National Building Museum on May 22, 2018, in Washington. (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

When the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision ended nationwide legal abortion in June of 2022, pro-life groups prepared to go on the political attack. “An entirely new pro-life movement begins today,” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser exulted in a statement. “We are ready to go on offense in every single one of these legislative bodies, in each statehouse and the White House.”

But in the wake of another round of devastating electoral losses for pro-lifers last week, Dannenfelser was more subdued: “The disappointing results in Ohio and Virginia are a reminder that human rights battles are not won overnight. Throughout history, great injustices have taken time and persistence to rectify.”

Last year, Democrats across the nation clung to the issue of abortion like an electoral life raft, preserving their Senate majority and minimizing their losses in the House. Meanwhile, Kentucky, Montana, and Kansas all failed to pass ballot measures that would have resulted in tighter abortion restrictions in their states. And last week, Ohio overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment legalizing abortion in the state, Kentucky’s Democratic governor won reelection on the strength of an abortion-access message, and Virginia Republicans fell short of recapturing the state legislature in an election where abortion was a flashpoint.

These losses have left groups like SBA Pro-Life America in a precarious place. They insist that Republicans can’t run from the issue of abortion—that Democrats will continue to hammer it no matter what. What’s needed, they argue, is a tactical repositioning: a national GOP embrace of the relatively moderated position of supporting a 15-week abortion ban with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life or physical health of the mother.

“You have to gain consensus among the American people for an issue like this. And you can only move as far as consensus will allow you to go,” SBA Pro-Life America chief political strategist Frank Cannon tells The Dispatch.

Much of the institutional GOP is lining up behind this argument. “We also have to define ourselves before the Democrats define us,” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday. “This is my number one message: If you’re digging yourself out of a hole, you’re going to lose. But if you go on TV and you say to the American people … “In a time of consensus, can’t we agree on reasonable limitations at 15 weeks when a baby feels pain?”

And NBC News reported last week that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is encouraging its candidates to “clearly state their opposition to a national abortion ban and their support for reasonable limits on late-term abortions.”

But that strategy has weaknesses in two different directions. First, there’s the simple fact that pro-life legislatures in red states are going to go on passing and defending far more restrictive laws than a supposed “consensus” 15-week restriction. It’s unclear how successful Republicans will be at redefining what the median voter sees as “the Republican abortion position” when any embrace of a 15-week bill contains an implicit since that’s the best we can get for now.

“States are gonna be as ambitious as they can be in pro-life states. There is no way to stop that,” Cannon says. “There’s not like a central authority that says, okay, we’re going to stop allowing Oklahoma to pass a complete abortion ban. There’s no leverage to do that. And so you have to operate within the reality.”

And on the strategic side, plenty of Republicans still think it’s a mistake to spend much time talking about federal abortion policy at all. “I think most of the members of my conference prefer that this be dealt with at the state level,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last year.

Similar sentiments can be read in the tea leaves of Republican presidential positioning. The race’s preeminent cheerleaders for a national 15-week ban, Tim Scott and Mike Pence, have been the first two to flame out of the race. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has continued to sail upwards in the polls despite refusing to commit to any specific abortion ban. And Nikki Haley has won plaudits for her own more centrist-minded take: She has waved off discussion of particular restriction thresholds, saying only she would support “anything that can pass,” while hammering the need to find “national consensus” on the issue.

“As much as I’m pro-life, I don’t judge anyone for being pro-choice, and I don’t want them to judge me for being pro-life,” Haley said at last week’s debate.

That kind of talk goes over particularly well with more secular Republicans and Republican-leaning independents—of the sort you find plenty of in, say, New Hampshire.

For pro-life groups, that turn bodes far less well—and activists worry that if they can’t stem the electoral losses, more and more of the party is likely to start making a similar move.

“The danger,” Cannon says, “is that the Republican Party is fast becoming operationally pro-choice.” 

Biden Campaign Zeroes in on Trump After Troubling Polls

President Joe Biden doesn’t have an official Republican opponent yet. But in the last few weeks, he’s had a particular one in mind. 

Since Sunday, November 5, President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has put out a baker’s dozen worth of press releases with “Donald Trump” in the subject line. Compare that to the preceding five weeks, during which Team Biden hit our inbox with just six Trump-themed messaging emails. What happened eight days ago to sharpen the 46th president’s focus on his predecessor and most likely Republican opponent in the general election? You might call it polling armageddon. 

On that day, multiple credible surveys were unveiled that showed Trump shellacking Biden in a hypothetical rematch, nationally and battleground states key to winning the Electoral College. More followed later in the week, even as Democrats delivered strong performances in last Tuesday’s off-year elections that suggests the environment might not be as bad for Biden, and his party, as the poll numbers suggest.

“We are confident the American people will send President Biden and Vice President Harris back to the White House to keep working for them,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement, after Democrats held serve in critical contests across the country. Rodriguez’s declaration of confidence may yet prove justified. But the president’s intensified pursuit of Trump appears a recognition of two developments. 

The first is that Trump appears headed to victory in the GOP primary, even as a handful of prominent Republicans wage spirited campaigns against him and insist the nomination remains within reach. The second is that voters have grown weary of Biden, and are willing to give Trump another chance to lead, despite everything: his attempt to overturn the 2020 election; fomenting the ransacking of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021; and being the subject of multiple criminal indictments, some of which could land him in jail if convicted.

The attack lines run a gamut of topics, and they not only inject arguments into the electorate’s bloodstream but also help the president’s team test which messages are most effective as they sharpen their strategy going into the likely rematch. Here are five, just to give you an idea:

  • Donald Trump Failed Latino Families
  • Biden-Harris 2024 Ad Slams Donald Trump for Lying to Autoworkers
  • Biden for President 2024 on Donald Trump and Republicans’ Calls to Cut Social Security and Medicare
  • Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban is Racist and Un-American
  • Biden-Harris National Advisory Board Members Blast Trump Plans to Weaponize DOJ and U.S. Military

Notable and Quotable 

“Everybody likes him. But we’re in a honeymoon period. All honeymoons end.”

—GOP Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez to The Dispatch on Speaker Mike Johnson’s ability to unify the Republican House, November 2, 2023

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  1. Allen Z

    So once a state passes a referendum or state constitutional amendment allowing abortion at any time, then conservative pro-choice voters can safely vote for anti-abortion conservative politicians knowing that abortion will remain legal in their state. Sounds to me like a workable political solution to the issue. Reminds me of how things worked under Roe v. Wade.

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  2. Jccarper46

    I think other commentators have made it clear that God allows a 100% mortality rate for all humans, born and preborn, while still communicating clearly that it is wrong to deliberately hasten the death of another human being. Too often supporters of abortion fail to distinguish between a natural fact about human beings and the deliberate killing of them. For a thoughtful discussion of the implantation issue and the problem of evil see Chris Tollefsen's piece in Public Discourse (December 2008).

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    1. Hikingguy

      In the Old Testament God hastened the deaths of all the people and all the animals-except Noah the Skipper and his family and breeding pairs of creatures- because God was surprised and upset with humans. Spare me. Or at least read the whole Bible. God's hands drip with blood. It was God who told the Israelites to slaughter every living thing in the Promised Land-but to spare the virgin girls for a life of sex slavery. Some example of morality. Sanctity of life? Tell God all about that. He clearly doesn't believe in it. Maybe you can change his mind.

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  3. Stephen Clay Settle

    In the years prior to 1861, few people in the North supported the goals and tactics of the abolition movement. According to some historians, the cause had less than two percent of the Northern populace expressing any sympathy whatsoever.

    On the contrary, many Northerners believed that emancipation would lead to a mass exodus of former slaves from the South immigrating to the North and taking jobs away from white laborers.

    Abolitionists were despised as "religious zealots," busy-bodies whose fanaticism in time would sunder the Union and drive the country to civil war. That latter view proved prescient.

    Pro-lifers face an all but identical scenario today - same script, different actors. The critical difference, of course, is that prenatal children cannot run away and escape those seeking to kill them. In this sense they are victims of a longstanding moral consensus, which holds in essence that if one is able to assert or defend one's own interest, through legal means or otherwise, then and only then does one merit the public's respect and concern.

    This moral turpitude is at the root not only of America's acceptance of abortion on demand, but of a host of other social and political ills that define our "freedom loving," aka, autonomy obsessed, culture.

    The one thing that pro-lifers cannot afford is something that they in fact can cure within themselves, and that is a sentimental and pious attachment to the mythology of America Immaculata. Many in the past five decades have asked, "How can this have happened in America?" when a realistic view of its history invokes the question "How can it not have?"

    It's arguably inevitable that a culture predicated on Enlightenment self-interest and autonomy as the highest of political values, and that in the name of "progress" enslaved one race while waging genocide against another, in time might turn its animus against the unwanted child in utero.

    For more than 50 years, pro-lifers placed their trust and hope in the Republican Party. That was a mistake of epic proportions, but it is not a death sentence. Not to be profane, but many a football game is won in the second half. Pro-lifers must revisit and recommit to their core legal principle, namely that the federal Constitution is broad and purposeful enough to include prenatal human life within its 14th Amendment reference to "persons." There may be incremental means to advance this understanding that do not compromise or deny it, but any legislation that would dilute it as such must be avoided at all cost. Pro-lifers likewise must emphasize their commitment to both mother and child, supporting any and all initiatives in the private and public sectors alike that serve to advance respect for life as the premier right of all human beings.

    America is dying from an addiction worse than fentanyl, and that is self-entitlement pursued as "liberty" and at the expense of others' very lives. Pro-lifers have a helluva job before them in challenging this pathology, but such is the radical nature of the business before them.

    Whether they prove persistent and adequate to the task, or succumb to the bourgeois ethos of their "conservative" host culture, time alone will tell.

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    1. Ufodaddy

      I wonder how many men posting long-winded, preachy, screeds about abortion and our cultural rot it will take before all those hearts and minds out there are changed.

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      1. Stephen Clay Settle

        I doubt many "hearts and minds are changed" until we manage to enact a legal ruling and/or legislation upholding the preborns' right to life. That will need to be followed by educating the public as to the facts of embryology and the reasons for the law having changed, or if you prefer, a rigorous program of public indoctrination. Such will no doubt face push-back and require time, but so does any radical initiative for good or bad. Again, I'm unsentimental about this country and do not share the "conservative's" adulation of leaving all things up to majority consensus. For all our celebrated love of autonomy above all, Americans are like everybody else in this old world - the will of the State prevails.

        Not to be cynical, but when the law changes, the "hearts and minds" of most change along with it.

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        1. Hikingguy

          That last sentence. Boy howdy. Have you never heard of Prohibition? Apparently the hearts and minds of the citizens were set on taking a drink once in awhile. After over a decade of futility, Congress and the legislatures of a majority of states repealed Prohibition. It was very stupid. It needed to be repealed. Hearts and minds, you know.

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            Mudskipper

            Yeah, I don't think Mr. Settle is particularly interested in changing hearts and minds. He just needs an excuse for forcing people to do what he wants them to do. " I'll force them to do this thing and then they'll see that I was right."

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          Mudskipper

          "That will need to be followed by educating the public as to the facts of embryology ..."

          This won't help you as much as you think. Many of us pro-choice folks who support elective abortions in the first trimester are quite educated as to what embryos are. We simply draw different conclusions about the legal rights of the embryos versus the mothers at that early stage of human development.

          "Not to be cynical, but when the law changes, the "hearts and minds" of most change along with it."

          State laws regarding abortion changed over a period of time in the United States, starting in the late 1800's, in the direction of making abortion illegal. By 1900, abortion was a felony in every state. Apparently hearts and minds didn't change, since states began to reverse course in the 1960s and 1970s.

          It is worth pointing out that during the period where abortions were illegal in every state, there were plenty of abortions happening. Even physicians performed them: my own very religious, conservative grandmother obtained one from her doctor in the late 1920s when he advised her that her pregnancy presented a grave risk to her health. Society pretty much looked the other way.

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        Kmregan7

        Especially when they’re directing it at women for having the gall to think maybe their health and bodies and lives actually matter MORE than an entity that can’t survive much less grow or become a person without women, and that their moral agency and religious (or lack of) viewpoints will be respected.

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    Stephanie

    I wonder if the Biden campaign addressing Trump's liabilities will make a difference.

    Most days, the stuff Trump posts on Truth Social is so incredibly unhinged. And totally obsessed with whining about being a victim. Calling other politicians who don't support him "vermin."And putting his enemies in prison. General Milley should be executed. One crazy thing after another. I see nothing about how he's going to serve the average American.

    His not showing up for debates deprived people of seeing what a pathetic performance he would've likely turned in.

    If the people who said they'd vote for Trump in these recent polls were aware of just how weird Trump has become, I wonder if they'd still want to vote for him?

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  5. Brandon Hartley

    This article is an excellent analysis of where the issue stands. My favorite part was the recognition that "pro-life red State legislatures" will continue to pass laws like Idaho's, which completely ban the practice AND attempt to criminalize it.

    I would add to that sentiment the support for radicalizing rhetoric. Every time the GOP, and The Dispatch, supports the "Democrats want elective abortion up to birth" attack, they feed the distrust of the left. I have moderate lefty friends, but they would never financially support The Dispatch because of this practice. This isn't supposition - I actively tried to get them to read The Dispatch as a different perspective.

    Maybe, just maybe, dog piling on that line isn't great electoral or business strategy?

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    🐝 BusyBusyBee 🐝

    The “15 week consensus” (aka rebranding the word BAN as CONSENSUS) failed in Virginia last week. Why? Because Americans have seen what happens when there are bans “with exceptions” in place. Women are still denied care over and over again. The media will continue to report out every woman who was forced to go through a catastrophic pregnancy related event - sepsis from a failed miscarriage or forcing women to carry a non-viable pregnancy to term (and we are talking about babies missing organs or undeveloped skulls) because the lawyers are now making medical decisions for women. And even though the exceptions are supposedly there, we’ve seen victims of child rape and incest who were denied care. Remember the 10 year old rape victim from Ohio who was forced to travel out of state for an abortion and the cacophony that followed that when it became known? Expect more and more of all of this.

    It kinda seems that the American people have spoken and their *consensus* is - “keep your laws off my body” because it doesn’t seem to me that the people who live in states with draconian bans seem especially thrilled with those bans.

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  7. Russell J

    Jonah mentioned “The Rest is History” podcast recently and I am enjoying some of the episodes.

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  8. Nick V

    I was in full support of the Dobbs decision, because of its Constitutionally correct reasoning (MHO). Adopting a federal abortion ban would seem to fly in the face of that legal reasoning. The GOP should stick with the principled argument.

    As for pro-life groups, I support their cause, but they would be wise to acknowledge the reality that if they are going to work to reduce abortions it will be by reducing the demand and not restricting the supply.

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  9. Mark Holmlund

    Abortion policy, at least for now, should be decided at the state level. Pro life states should pursue the restrictions their citizenry supports. If/when Democrats propose a federal 15 week restriction, we’ll know the tide has turned.

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      Stephanie

      People will disagree, I'm sure . . . It's not for sure in some states where Republicans have redistricted aggressively and have minority rule that their citizenry is truly represented by their government.

      Also, I doubt that pro-choice voters will accept an artificial limit of 15 weeks. There is no rational basis for it. There is no scientific certainty about when a fetus can feel pain.

      Plenty of people need an abortion for good reasons after 15 weeks. The government should not be involved, even a little teeny bit, on deciding whether an abortion is necessary.

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      1. Mark Holmlund

        You’re arguing, if I’m not mistaken, that there should be no restrictions on abortion (a fetus feels no pain in the 9 month?) and that even states that have passed more onerous restrictions on the practice have done so via bad-faith political manipulation by Republicans. It’s more than ok for you to hold this pro choice position, but I think you should acknowledge that it is extreme.

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        1. Stephen Clay Settle

          A little bit of slavery, a little bit of segregation, a little bit of homophobia, a little bit of sex discrimination in the workplace, maybe even a little bit of pedophilia ... no doubt there have been at one time or another majorities that might have accepted some or all of these allowances.

          Thank God such consensus eventually lost.

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          1. Mark Holmlund

            Why bother with such an unserious comment?

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          Stephanie

          I'm saying that the "fetus feels pain" at some particular point is not an argument that can be made so it should not be.

          Only facts should be deployed.

          I said nothing about "bad faith manipulation." I did say that if Republicans have power in a state and yet are a minority because of packing and cracking Democratic voters that that is not a representative government. If you think it is, please explain why.

          And no, I am not representing an extreme view. I am more a mainstream POV.

          I've noticed most abortion absolutists are men. Of course some are women.

          But men are the last people to understand about abortions, who has them and why, and to be most likely fail to understand how incredibly intrusive it is for the state to be interfering in the doctor-patient relationship.

          And we still do believe in the separation of church and state, don't we? The anti-abortion fight has always been powered by religious interests who use their religious beliefs as reasons. And they are the most rigidly conservative beliefs.

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          1. Mark Holmlund

            Stephanie,

            When, if at all, should abortion not be allowed?

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  10. Jccarper46

    While taking his former allies in the civil rights movement to task for supporting the right to terminate human life, the late Richard John Neuhaus warned those of us in the pro-life movement not to become closely tied to the Republican Party. His advice remains sage.

    David G's post has much to commend it, but, in my opinion, overgeneralizes. Having been involved in the pro-life movement since before Roe v Wade, I have witnessed more variation than asserted here. All pro-life advocates I have known assert that, as a matter of science, human life begins at conception (for a useful review of embryology see Chapter 2 of Embryo: A Defense of Human Life by Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen). They have not, however, always been in agreement on what constitutes a compelling reason to terminate it at any stage of development. Regarding the Trump factor, and aware that the plural of anecdote is not data, most of my pro-life colleagues certainly approved of the former president's appointments to the federal bench, but many of us sat out the 2020 presidential election. We were not then and are not now Trump cheer leaders. I will grant, however, that we are a small minority.

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    1. Stephen Clay Settle

      If Trump keeps at it, you won't be in the minority much longer. In fact, I doubt you are now. Which is to say that he may have done a lot more to help the pro-life movement over the long haul than he ever really intended to.

      Call it a corollary to imperfect contrition - accidental virtue.

      And check out the American Solidarity Party. We could use your help.

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      1. Jccarper46

        Will do. JCC

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    2. DavidG3276

      Not all pro-life advocates believe in the RCC's position that human life begins at conception. Considering that the majority of fertilized eggs never implant in the womb, to believe that would mean that God made women's bodies into abortion factories resulting in mass deaths beyond our understanding. Given the record turnout in the 2020 election and that close to 80% of evangelicals voted for Trump, it's hard to see that many pro-lifers sat out the election.

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        TJ

        The majority of fertilized eggs die…and approaching 100% of all people who have ever lived die. So I’m not sure the mortality rate is a great way to frame the discussion.

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        1. DavidG3276

          We all die but your answer begs the question. When a fertilized egg is passed out of the womb is that a death? Given how it seems that women's bodies are designed to do this, are we really saying that God has set it up to kill the majority of humans before they can even start?

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            TJ

            He set it up to expel dead bodies yes. The alternative wouldn’t be great options. The woman would die as result probably or have significant health issues. Child mortality used to be 1 out of 2. Infant mortality was probably a lot higher. The Romans used to through out infants they didn’t want so they would die in the weather. That infant mortality has improved has been a great blessing and advancement. As I said earlier life is a process in which we all die at the end. So I don’t see any problem with the idea that the designer of universe set things up so that many lives are ended before they see the light of day. The other lives (like yours and mine) are all ended as well often in massive pain and suffering.

            In order to believe abortion is acceptable one has accept 1 of 2 things. I don’t see a way around this.

            Either
            1) science is mistaken about when human life begins
            2) it isn’t wrong to kill innocent humans

            Is that a fair way to state the issue?

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