Democrats control the presidency, the House, and, thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’s deciding swing vote, the deadlocked Senate. According to every available indicator, from the price of gas to Joe Biden’s abysmal approval rating, their party has only a few months left in control.
On the heels of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and Justice Clarence Thomas teasing a (highly unlikely) challenge to Griswold v. Connecticut, a utilitarian left-winger would use this opportunity not just to pass the most unifying codifications of abortion and contraception access but also to make Republicans cast politically risky votes just 100 days out from the midterm elections.
A 50-50 Senate might not be willing to codify abortion until viability, and it sure won’t pass Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) abortion-until-birth bill. But what about something more mainstream — say, a national protection for first-trimester abortions in the cases of rape and incest? Whereas the majority of Americans polled by Gallup in 2018 opposed purely elective abortions, more than 3 in 4 favored legal, first-trimester abortions in cases of rape and incest. It could be a political winner.
But that assumes Democrats are sincere in their rhetoric about the danger to women’s rights. And there is plenty of reason to doubt that.
Instead of actually doing their jobs, lefty hotshot Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) were seen today cosplaying as revolutionaries. Capitol Police, recently accused by the socialist AOC of complicity in the Jan. 6 riots, arrested more than a dozen congresswomen during a boisterous demonstration in front of the securely fenced Supreme Court building. But it was only Ocasio-Cortez and Omar who seemingly pretended to be handcuffed in staged videos of being escorted away from the court steps.
It’s safe to say that neither congresswoman is a victim. Actual victims usually don’t have to fake being handcuffed to garner sympathy — or in the more likely case here, donations and publicity. But the more telling fact is that not one of the 16 congresswomen arrested, nor their party as a whole, is serious enough about their stated commitment to abortion rights to try to push a viable bill through the House. For them, it’s all a performance with no substance.
As noted above, Pelosi’s Women’s Healthcare Protection Act is dead on arrival in the Senate. The contraception bill proposed by House Democrats also seems to be a problem, as it would supersede the Religious Freedom Restoration Act — something specifically cited by the key pro-choice Republican swing vote in the Senate, Susan Collins (R-ME).
But if Democrats were serious about making this a campaign issue, they would be forcing Republicans to take politically perilous votes on bills that the public actually supports. As long as they’re too busy pretending to be handcuffed, they won’t be doing that.
