Don’t Believe Trump, GOP’s Desperate Lies About Abortion
No matter what they say now, they’ll make a terrible situation even worse.
If (mostly white) Americans are either foolish or hateful enough to give Donald Trump another presidential term, he’s going to ban all abortions. He got off to a great start when he nominated three far-right radical Supreme Court justices with no regard for precedent. Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett all hopped on the forced-birth bandwagon with Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and John Roberts. Six people decided that 168 million American women no longer had a constitutional right to abortion. The Dobbs decision returned the matter to the states, who in turn delivered a horror show of abortion bans. This remains Trump’s enduring presidential legacy, and his botched pandemic response likely killed almost half a million people. He was awful is what I’m saying.
Last week, the Florida Supreme Court upheld Gov. Ron DeSantis’ six-week abortion ban, and Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a pre-statehood law from 160 years ago that bans all abortions, with no exceptions other than maybe trying to save the mother’s life. The law that’s older than a woman’s right to vote mandates two to five years in prison for anyone aiding an abortion. The ban would shut down abortion clinics around the state and jeopardize women’s lives, even those who wanted to carry their pregnancies to term. A state that criminalizes necessary reproductive health care won’t attract the best medical professionals.
Enforcement of the law is stayed for another two weeks, and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs cleverly issued an executive order last year that gave all power to enforce abortion laws to the Democratic state attorney general, Kris Mayes, who’s made clear she won’t enforce the terrible law. (Mayes won her 2018 election by 280 votes. Keep that in mind, third-party voters.) However, any one of the state’s Republican county attorneys could challenge Hobbs’ order.
The decision was 4-2, and the justices — three men and one woman — in the majority were all appointed by Republican governors. It’s a terrible law on every moral and human level, but it’s also bad politics. Arizona Republicans who have to face voters in November are already distancing themselves from the law. This includes election-denying MAGA loon Kari Lake, who quickly released a statement declaring her opposition to the ruling.
“I have traveled to every corner of this state on the campaign trail,” Lake said. “I speak to more Arizonans than anyone and it is abundantly clear that the pre-statehood law is out of step with Arizonans.” She called for Hobbs and the state’s MAGA legislature to “come up with an immediate common sense solution that Arizonans can support.”
Lake used the phrase “common sense solution” as if she were playing a centrist drinking game with Kyrsten Sinema, whose seat she wants to fill. Lake also claimed that as senator, she’d oppose a federal abortion ban. Please try to contain your surprise, but it’s possible she’s lying. Here’s audio of Lake praising the abortion ban during an interview in the distant past of 2022.
“I’m incredibly thrilled that we are going to have a great law that's already on the books,” Lake said out loud and in public. “It will prohibit abortion in Arizona except to save the life of a mother. And I think we're going to be paving the way and setting course for other states to follow.”
Democrat Ruben Gallego, who isn’t an inveterate liar, said, “Today’s ruling is devastating for Arizona women and their families. This is not what Arizonans want. This decision rips away the right for women to make their own healthcare decisions with their doctors. I promise you that we will fight this together. And with your help, we will win.”
Sinema is still the senior senator from Arizona for the rest of the year, but she could only muster up some soggy sentiments about how she’ll “work with anyone to protect Arizona women’s ability to make their own decisions about their futures.” Seems like she had a chance to do so when it mattered, which Gallego points out in his followup email Tuesday afternoon.
As a father, I am fearful for my daughter. As an Arizonan, I am fearful for the people of my state. And as an American, I am absolutely furious that this has come to pass.
It’s not lost on me that this happened because of the Supreme Court that Donald Trump built, and because the Senate failed to act to protect abortion rights when they had the chance.It’s a dark day, but this is NOT over.
If I make it to the Senate I will do everything I can to pass legislation that will make the protections provided by Roe v. Wade the law of the land — including reforming the filibuster.
Sinema dismissed a proposed filibuster exception specifically to codify abortion rights after Dobbs. This is also her legacy.
Forced-birth radicals keep walking into a rake
Arizona for Abortion Access announced last week that it had gathered enough signatures to put a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights on the state’s ballot in November. In fact, the group had exceeded the necessary threshold by 120,000 signatures and plans to keep collecting them through the July deadline.
“As our volunteers are out collecting, people are coming up to them, folks are coming up to them and wanting to sign this petition,” said Cheryl Bruce, the campaign manager for Arizona for Abortion Access. “They want to see access to abortion restored in the state of Arizona.”
The Arizona and Florida Supreme Courts have both triggered a massive get-out-the-vote movement for Democrats. Yes, there is a documented history of voters backing a progressive ballot amendment while also electing terrible Republican candidates. This is different, though, because there’s every reason to believe that these abortion ballot measures are engaging people — young single women specifically — who are far more likely to vote Democratic.
Cindy Dahlgren, a spokesperson for the It Goes Too Far campaign, believes the amendment … goes too far, and she trotted out the same, tired lies.
“Unfortunately, most voters are not told that under the unregulated, unlimited abortion amendment they will lose the required medical doctor, critical and common sense safety standards for girls and women seeking abortion,” Dahlgren said, while accompanied by a small violin, “and moms and dads will be shut out of their minor daughter’s abortion decision, leaving her to go through the painful and scary process alone.”
Dahlgren’s rhetoric might’ve worked when Roe was still in effect. Back then, it was a battle of dueling nightmare scenarios. Now Roe is gone and the nightmare is real. Dahlgren’s spooky campfire tales aren’t nearly as frightening as the actual stories about women who’ve almost died because of these draconian bans.
Trump has tried to run away from his abortion record, while simultaneously boasting about ending Roe. Monday, he released a lie-filled video on his jack-legged social media site.
“My view is now that we have abortion where everyone wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both,” said the presidential candidate Republicans insist is not the senile one. “And whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state.”
“Many states will be different,” he rambled on. “Many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative than others, and that’s what they will be. At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.”
Trump also stressed that he supported abortion ban exceptions for rape and incest, in addition to the life of the mother. It feels like 1984 again, and I’m listening to Prince on the radio machine. Unfortunately, it’s actually 2024. Prince is dead, and so is Roe. We’ve watched in horror as Republican-run legislatures passed all-but-total bans. Forced-birth law makers also want to prevent women from traveling to other states for an abortion. No one should believe his jive.
Anti-abortion zealots quickly denounced Trump’s fake “moderate” position on abortion. His former vice president, Mike Pence, claimed that Trump’s “retreat” on the issue is a “slap in the face” to the millions of forced birthers who voted for him. Pence has maintained a flair for the dramatic even after Trump’s followers tried to hang him.
Anti-abortion leader Lila Rose declared that Trump was “no longer a pro-life candidate,” which is certainly true in the literal sense of that term.
“[Former New York Gov.] Mario Cuomo was infamous for popularizing the framework of being ‘personally pro-life, but politically pro-choice,’” she said. “Former President Trump has taken this one step further by refusing to acknowledge the federal government’s role in protecting life and by saying it should be left only to the states, while also saying he is undecided on how he will vote in November’s abortion ballot question in Florida which would allow the killing of children via abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.”
You know Rose is mad because she called Trump the “former president.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham also mildly criticized Trump, who proceeded to slap him around on social media. That relationship is too perverse to discuss in further depth.
GOP would prefer more down-low abortion bans
Trump’s flailing on abortion reveals the GOP’s current dilemma. Republicans had hoped to make the election about the border or the economy, for which they have no constructive solutions beyond impeaching Hunter Biden. However, the Supreme Court and far-right Republicans across the nation have ensured that abortion is the top issue on Election Day.
When Democrats cave on a contentious issue, they legitimately change their position. Republicans prefer to just lie to gullible swing voters and quietly cater to their extremist base. Judd Legum at
reports that “Trump allies are pushing for him to effectively ban all abortion by using the Comstock Act, an anti-obscenity law from the 1800s.” Weaponizing the Comstock Act would effectively “criminalize the shipping of any materials used in an abortion.” Trump’s campaign is noticeably silent about the Comstock Act.Forced birthers who understand strategy want to suppress their maniacal laughs until after the election. They understand that anti-abortion policies aren’t popular and the current abortion bans are toxic.
The Arizona and Florida abortion laws are terrible, but Trump and the GOP will deliver much worse nationwide once they have the opportunity. If they claim otherwise, they’re lying. Don’t believe them. Vote against every Republican up and down the ballot.
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““My view is now that we have abortion where everyone wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both,” said the presidential candidate Republicans insist is not the senile one. “And whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state.”” - Republicans continue to stare uncomfortably at that car they caught but don’t know how to drive. This was always a point of supreme irritation for me. WHY, on G-d’s green and verdant Earth should women have different reproductive rights depending on what state they’re living in?! The states’ rights argument is quite possibly the weakest one in the Republican playbook and that is saying something. They have nothing, they know nothing, the illegitimate partisan hack Supreme Court decision to kill Roe is going to kill people, if it hasn’t already, and all Republicans have is “uh, states’ rights?” 🤷🏻♀️ I fervently hope this destroys them up and down the ballot in November. Americans have notoriously short attention spans, but hopefully long enough to last until Election Day.
Trump is probably too vain to see it but the anti-abortionists taking shots at him for not being anti-abortion enough are doing him a favor, by making it look like he's taking the "middle position" (MSM dipshits are also helping with that, by credulously suggesting he has "distaste" for extreme bans). But Democrats can wreck that whole plan by campaigning on "Do you trust Trump to stand up to the anti-abortion extremists who he counts on to elect him?" Voters have to consider what Trump would do if an abortion ban crossed his desk--would he stand up for a moderate principle, or agree with whatever the people who flatter him the most ask him to do? We already saw how he handled the question of which judges to nominate, with the very result that we are now discussing things like national abortion bans which weren't possible before his nominees overturned Roe.