No True Conviction on Abortion

Has Western media fallen?

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Sarah, Steve, and Jonah react to Donald Trump’s milquetoast yet controversial statement on abortion and how it’s confusing Republican abortion policy at large.

The Agenda:
—What do people really think about abortion?
—Conviction vs. convenience on the abortion issue
—Israel’s pullout from southern Gaza
—Is Israel making the same mistakes as America?
—Craziness on college campuses
—Trump’s “Sister Souljah” moment
—Does Hamas have “enough” living hostages?
—How NPR lost America’s trust
—What have we gotten wrong?

Show Notes:
—Trump’s “rogue cops” comment
—2022 midterm exit polls
—David French’s writing on a “pro-life culture”
—The Dispatch editorial on the lesser of two evils
—Trump: “Take the guns first, go through due process second.”
—The Dispatch Podcast with Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns

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Comments (83)
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  1. Jstevenson85

    Who is this imprisoned Palestinian leader that the kids today are signal boosting?

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    1. Jstevenson85

      I think Sarah Isgur brought this person up, anyone know who she was talking about?

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    Kaitlin Johnson

    Re Trump forcing people to renounce their core issue first… he’s just Gail Wynand from The Fountainhead!

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  3. MB

    Thanks to the 3 of you for another great podcast, enjoyed it very much.

    I wanted to agree with Jonah, for the most part. But disagree about rationales.

    My priors - got fooled and voted for Trump in 2016, regretted it and didn't vote for either flawed candidates in 2020, have no idea what to do this year (i.e., "double hater", I guess). Since I vote in PA, it bothers me more I guess. Also, Catholic and committed pro-life for the entirety of my life.

    So, I agree with Jonah that Trump's new "position" on abortion is like the monkey typing on a keyboard and getting it right in this universe. And I don't care if it is political cowardice as Steve points out - seems about right - or accidental good politics as Jonah postulates.

    For me, the "let the states figure it out" is correct and fundamental to the question for the pro-life movement needs to grapple with. For, I think the pro-life movement needs to persuade people into our position. I cringe at the pro-life proponents who want to mandate a gestational age limit for the nation or any of the idiotic demonstrations of supporting the 1864 law from Arizona or the rest. I think people of good conscience need to listen to our fellow citizens and try to convince them that the loss of a fetal life is a tragedy that should be mourned and not celebrated.

    I know it is an old-fashioned notion to consider trying to change people's minds through listening and dialog - and I have no illusion that Trump or anyone else is actually willing to partake in this grown up activity - but I still think it needs to be done. I'm sure it will take another generation or two to come to some more rationale consensus.

    Anyway, thanks for the conversation. Have no idea who this D. French guy is that you all keep referencing. Think I might have heard of him in some minor role in the AO podcast. Have a great weekend.

    MB

    PS - prayers for Israel and Jews in general.
    PPS - prayers for all of us since it seems like a world war has broken out and our government hasn't noticed because it would be bad for both party's politics.

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    George.Skinner

    I don’t think The Dispatch or other news outlets have much to apologize for regarding their handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story. It’s telling that this is the example that right wing critics keep returning to as an example of supposedly bad faith treatment by non-right wing outlets. Giuliani and other Trump proxies had basically torched their credibility by late 2020, and that was before the disgrace of their efforts to overturn Biden’s win. However, in this case, it turns out they were being truthful, and the indignation they expressed is recognizable to any parent of a teenager who they’ve accused of *not* taking out the garbage again on the one occasion they’d actually done it.

    I’m also puzzled how the narrative regarding Russian interference and the Mueller investigation has turned to the notion that there was nothing there. Mueller reported Russian interference, communication between the Trump campaign and Russia, documented interest in collusion, but ultimately couldn’t find evidence of criminal conspiracy. That’s not nothing. Mueller also documented evidence of obstruction of justice on the part of Donald Trump, although didn’t pursue charges because he was a sitting president. That naturally leads people to wonder if there *was* a criminal conspiracy, but Trump and others managed to hide the evidence?

    So yes - MSNBC and other left wing outlets got out over their skis on hyping the Russian interference story and the idea that it was decisive in winning the election for Trump. However, it seems relevant to note that unlike Fox’s massive settlement after their airing of stolen election claims, all of Trump’s lawsuits related to the Russia story have been dismissed. That includes his suit against the author of the Steele Dossier.

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    Earl King

    With respect to Biden and his turn around on Israel for electoral reasons. They may have known that there is a contingent of their Party that is pro Palestinian. I am however convinced that there was no way to believe that it would support Hamas and Palestinians in their 9/11 style attack on Israel. That Hamas’s heinous behavior would have support. I believe they underestimated the virulent anti Semitism within their Party.

    Next, I do not have any other explanation for the turnaround other than this. My gut told me at the time with Bernie Sanders dropped out and in his rounds of the Sunday News shows said “I believe will be the most Progressive President ever”, that a deal had been struck. This idea of a deal between Bernie and the Progressives was cemented when the WH brought in all those Historians who told Biden he could be the most Progressive since FDR. Biden made a promise and he is attempting to stick with it. I just think he believed cutting babies out of mothers wombs were beyond the pale. Now he knows he has genocidal manics within the Democrat coalition. There is no other explanation for their behavior and support of Hamas which some radicals do.

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    Charley Warns

    What makes something constitutional is its existence in the Constitution. In an earlier piece, I pointed out that the right to an abortion is not in the Constitution; ergo, it's a t a state mater It's self evident that w. And yet someone replied to me with this: "just because [the right to an abortion] is not in the Constitution, it doesn't mean it's not constitutional."

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    BWG

    The Uri Berliner article was in The Free Press. I never heard this cited. In fact that portion of the pod was mostly done before we heard the author’s full name. Why? Not the journalistic standard I’ve come to expect from The Dispatch.

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  8. Stcyrn1

    I love it when Sarah constantly interrupts Jonah. Why would I want to hear Jonah's uniquely interesting points, when I can hear Sarah's trite ones? Please, keep the interruptions coming. Over and over, the more the better. Maybe she should interrupt his first syllable when he's asked a question. That would be nirvana. You know why I spend $100 a year to subscribe to The Dispatch? Not Jonah and his insightful, interesting opinions. Oh no, it's Sarah Isgur's constant interruptions

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    1. BenP

      If only there were a podcast with Jonah doing uninterrupted monologues...

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  9. William Hodes

    We are in desparate need of a more nuanced lexicon describing abortion-related views and proposals, and have been for sure since Dobbs, and probably for at least a dozen years before that.

    Some people who claim to be "pro-life" would criminalize all deliberate actions that terminate a pregnancy, at whatever point in time, and without any exceptions. But other "pro-lifers" actively promote a regime in which a pregnacy can legally be terminated for any reason or for no reason, on demand, so long as the unborn is less than 15 weeks into term. (How's it going, Senator Graham?)

    At the same time, a large percentage of people who classify themselves as "pro-choice" (later evolved into being "pro-abortion"), favor heavy restrictions, including cimrinal penalities, for late and very late term abortions.

    Similarly, descriptions of this or that law or regulation as a "ban" on abortion are almost always unhelpful, even if modifiers such as "15-week" ban are appended. Let's spend a few (or more than a few) words informing each other about what restrictions we favor, with what exceptions, and with what enforcement or other remedial mechanisms attached.

    To take a non-random example, how should we classify Senator Graham's preferred federal 15-week restriction, support for which has (on-and-off) been made a litmus test for some mainline "pro-life" groups. It leaves unaffected fully 95% of all abortions, and normalizes in the culture abortion on demand for good or bad or disgusting reasons in the vast majority of pregnancies.

    But instead of celebrating the normalization of a broadly "pro-choice" regime, the truely dedicated pro-abortion forces treat the restrictions placed on the 5% of woman who even seek later term abortions as effectively putting all women back in chains.

    Because the country at learge is indeed comfortable with something like abortion on demand up to 15 weeks, and heavy restrictions (with some important exceptions) thereafter, and because Dobbs allows the country at large to make that policial choice, something like that will eventually become the law in most states overthe next 10 years. (Far more restrictive legislative solutions will gradually be replaced, either by referenda or state constitutonal amendment or by replacement of the out-of-step state legislators.)

    Which brings me to the Kabuki Theatre of pretending to play that process out at the federal level. Almost everyone--and The Dispatch has not been an exception so far--discusses a federal versus a state-by-state approach as if it's an interesting and important choice. with this or that probable political fallout (with this or that probable benefit or detriment).

    But it's all Kabuki Theatre, and not only because federal legislatiion couldn't pass--leaving aside which side of the debate "should" be for it and which side "should" be against it. See above.

    Senator Graham's law, to take a non-random example again, would be patently unconstituional, and not because of any Roe-like (or reverse Roe-like) reasons. Congress has no power to reach private conduct in the absence of State Action, and the failure of of a State to pass a law restricting abortion to the satisfaction of the federal Congress is not State Action. (Or, for the nerds, State Inaction is not State Action; see DeShaney.)

    It is true that the proposed law baldly asserts that Congress has power to enact it under the Fourteenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause. The former is just wrong, while the latter is only true in Greyhound Bus stations and similar venues.

    P.S. The Comstock Act is different. If it does sufficient homework, the federal government CAN prevent the transportation in interstate commerce of certain drugs.Show less

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    Seth B

    I hereby salute the Dispatch for *not* wasting its time and resources on, of all things, Hunter Biden's laptop, an object which deserves a prominent place in the Museum of Right-wing Bogeymen, perhaps around the corner from Barack Obama's tan suit.

    For once in my life, I wholeheartedly agreed with Ted Cruz when he said of the Hunter Biden brouhaha, "I don't think it moves a single voter."

    (https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/10/27/ted-cruz-on-trumps-hunter-biden-focus-i-dont-think-it-moves-a-single-voter/?sh=64e33a4b6e55)

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