There exists plenty of contradiction about the role of the abortion issues(s) in the 2024 presidential race.
What are the current, assumed or hopeful, candidates for the 2024 presidential race saying? Is there any alignment detectible vis-a-vis abortion and major party politics? What are the abortion activists saying, and what are the right to life activists saying? The churches? The Deep State?
The American people are generally buffered, in the middle of the noise from the abortion Left and the Right. The Left, for the most part, have not been able to sustain the fury of losing Roe vs Wade in 2023, and we are not hearing as much about protests or bombings at pro-life centers in 2024. The Biden administration was publicly shamed for its obvious leftist preferences in regard to criminal liability for the terror attacks on prolife facilities and people, but Biden too has backed down a bit on what was a very bad look -- e.g., arresting people for praying peacefully (while Antifa and BLM demolish cities) not popular with the ‘average’ American. Despite the Biden government’s pretty comprehensive, ongoing efforts to ghost Christianity in America, it will remain a vital force, until or when it no longer is.
The Christian churches in America represent now a sort of moral grab bag on abortion. There is no consensus on many moral issues, including abortion, in the Protestant field because most of the major Protestant denominations are already split up, or headed there and not just on the ‘social’ issues but on their basic historical cohesion as well. The Southern Baptists were the first to split off, generations ago; now the Methodist and Presbyterian churches have long experienced multiple ideological splits, to name a few of many.
The Catholic Church, that for years has provided consistent leadership in protesting abortion nationally and advocating for pro-life candidates, is fighting for its moral survival in the United States, vis-a-vis a hostile Pope (and radical clergy). Pope Francis seems to champion and challenge essential Catholic moral and spiritual propositions like abortion on a ‘how-am-I-feeling-today’ basis. He has recently said that he is breaking from the traditions of the papacy. Just so.
So, the American voter can easily recognize, and many have experienced at first hand, disparities both ‘Christian’ and American sentiment regarding abortion, and therefore, voters are in the dark as to closure on abortion. They may decide it’s time.
As President Trump unfortunately said recently (but did not entirely mean as immediately interpreted to his disadvantage), that we are left to consult our own “hearts” on the matter. Biblical teaching repeatedly warns about the natural, moral vagarity of the heart’s decisions. Yet, Trump’s ‘heart’ statement was just an undertone, an issue of English usage, if you will -- he might have been better advised to go with “soul” over “heart.”
So, Trump, qua candidate, has recently -- clearly, rightly, and constitutionally -- advocated for the states to take up the ‘supreme’ governmental responsibility, insofar as they should, on abortion rights law. This is a winning position, compared to what the Democrats and Independents are cooking up.
For, in contrast, we have Biden, whose entirely, absolutely non-Catholic, ‘Catholic’ position on abortion is that of the radical Left. Biden evidently believes he can stand to lose a significant slice of the Christian vote on this ugly, extreme position. If he thinks he can make up for an electoral loss on extreme abortion rights by drawing on the much-referenced, variously polled pro-abortion women in suburbia and on welfare, Biden may be somewhat off the actual count.
For, and here’s an interesting idea: what about our minority populations, to include disaffected blacks, which is growing fast, and Hispanics? These people are increasingly moving Right. Can we possibly assume that Hispanics have no negative opinions about abortion? And black families, mothers and fathers, who have seen so much damage at firsthand?
Also, will the entire illegal immigration ‘vote’ that Biden is busying himself underwriting, really be on his side for abortion? One wonders. Many of those who want to come to America do so for family reasons, illegal or not. The exclusively American/European immoral smugness on abortion is regarded by the balance of the world as evil. To trust blindly in the ‘vote’ of recent foreigners in current crisis well may play out as a risible Bidenesque fantasy by November 2024. Gratitude for easy handouts is not to be counted on in human behavior.
Then you have, as a point of interest, the ‘candidate’ son of Ethel Kennedy -- herself once a wealthy and famously loyal Catholic. (Ethel Skakel Kennedy, a force in her own right historically, was never truly accepted into the ‘Jackie’ magic media circle. It is no surprise that the Kennedy family at large are dissing Bobbie’s run; he could, as his mother’s son, take that as a compliment.) RFK Jr. is threatening to federally codify abortion if he somehow breaks loose of evident family resentments and Democratic Party conspiracies and secures the presidency. Some put his recent abortion announcement down to leftist politics, as it followed closely on his pick of a VP candidate who is young, female, and ‘radical.’ Whatever his reasons, in his recent promotion of federal, codified abortion rights, RFK Jr. is not speaking to the middle anymore, as he has consistently promised. He is also not speaking for the same ‘coming together’ that has been a main feature of RFK Jr. since he announced. He has perhaps made a mistake because he is now sounding a lot like Biden on abortion.
So, we have a few distinct but mixed bags -- cultural, political, and religious -- on abortion ahead of November 2024. We may fairly assume that the ‘silent American’ factor will clarify these contradictions in November. It is even more likely that Trump, in his recent public standing with the states for abortion rights’ legal decisions, is just where he should be for the coming election -- in the middle.
States’ rights will be big in November, anyway. As the feds/ Deep State continues to feverishly demolish any credibility in the popular mind, and as many Red states rise in population and regulatory sanity; and, as many Blue states feel the deep, even physical traumas of their progressive, idiotic Democratic decisions over the past decades, middle ground may look very good to many voters. It is ethically a moral position to allow people to make, or not make, the personal decisions that they alone will pay for in time -- biblical tradition is really clear on this point. It is an immoral and distasteful position to allow the federal government to force these decisions upon anyone.
On a personal note, I sustained an illegal abortion at the age of 18, in the late ‘60s. I grieved terribly, and was completely destabilized for more than a decade, and my young decision came close to ruining my whole life. In my particular case, people with wisdom, mercy, and love brought me to the eventual restitution of my own self, and I have since managed to forgive myself -- just. Nevertheless, I and many, in the ‘middle” of this issue, agree strongly that, pro or con, the abortion issue should be regulated minimally, only necessarily, and closest to home -- with the states.
Trump does have a valid point, in so far as it applies, about abortion decisions and the human heart. Let us not be more monstrously intrusive to people ( both women, and men, too, who must be acknowledged in their paternal share of the suffering) than an abortion, itself, is, by its very nature.
Image: Jordanuh17
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