The bottom line is still the bottom line despite all that has happened in the last two years regarding legal abortion in this country: Popular opinion is critical.
The United States Supreme Court ruled in June 2022 that the people in each state would decide if abortion would be legal, or not, in that state. Many states already have decided, either by statewide votes or by acts of the various state legislatures.
In Congressional and state elections in November 2022, abortion was an issue in many instances. Pro-abortion feelings were strong. Both major political parties read the tea leaves.
If any rule is eternal in politics, it is that politicians want to win elections. They follow, not lead voters, so the Democratic Party reaffirmed its support of abortion on demand in its 2024 platform. Its candidate for president, Vice President Kamala Harris, demands a national law permitting abortion.
The Republican Party deleted altogether from its platform its longstanding opposition to lawful abortion. Its vice presidential nominee, Senator JD Vance, a Catholic, promised that if former President Donald J. Trump is elected to another White House term, Trump will veto any congressional national ban on abortion.
A question of personhood
Presidents can veto legislation, but Congress can, and does, overturn vetoes.
Congressional passage of any national ban on or national permission for abortion and overturning any presidential veto may be difficult in what is predicted to be the next Congress, narrowly divided on many issues. But no one in Congress wanting to stay in office would dare to ignore popular opinion.
Current arguments reveal the intensity of the national disagreement about the issue, and differences will not go away soon.
Here is the problem: Federal law, beginning with the Constitution, is silent about personhood. No fundamental legal principle or statute, regardless of the 2022 Supreme Court ruling, establishes that an unborn human being is a human being possessing human rights such as the right to life.
Possibly — but not likely given history and current realities — the Supreme Court could define “personhood.” And Congress could act, surely if members of Congress detected favorable popular opinion.
What about religion?
Science does not help much. Many physicians presently demand the right to perform abortions, including experts in embryology, obstetrics and human reproduction. Their voices monopolize the conversation, especially in the media.
What about religious denominations? Of all the many organized religious communities in this country — Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians and so on — only the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptists teach that personhood begins at conception.
Furthermore, religious influence in America is not what it was, to say the least.
Finally, bold, mighty, and brazen in this country is the philosophy that universal morality is no standard. The only important consideration is each person’s “feelings.” The sexual revolution reduced and distorted long-held views about intimacy. Intimacy is casual. Conceptions always follow intimacy. Connect the dots.
Americans who revere unborn life cannot relent, but the answer is not in relying upon politicians, who, in any event, cannot rule by decree under the American system of government, and who invariably yield to ambition by trying to appeal to the majority.
Now as much as ever, the availability and approval of abortion rests so much on public opinion.
Pro-life Americans can persuade those of opposite views that an unborn fetus is an individual human being by insisting that this view is just plain common sense and that disregarding others’ rights, anybody’s rights, always brings catastrophe.
Speak with knowledge of established facts. Admit that for many women unwanted pregnancies bring problems. Address these problems. Promote alternatives to abortion. Assist efforts to find options.
This is essential. Across the board, respect human life, for every person, always, without hesitation or exception, applying this principle expressly to other contemporary concerns, such as the death penalty, welfare, immigration, poverty, warfare and oppression anywhere in the world.
