We told you yesterday that the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that an 1864 abortion ban can go into effect after the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
We were kind of happy about it:
Not everyone on the conservative side of the aisle had our same positive feelings about the law.
Most prominent among them was Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake.
I am the only woman and mother in this race. I understand the fear and anxiety of pregnancy, and the joy of motherhood. I wholeheartedly agree with President Trump — this is a very personal issue that should be determined by each individual state and her people. I oppose today's ruling, and I am calling on Katie Hobbs and the State Legislature to come up with an immediate common sense solution that Arizonans can support. Ultimately, Arizona voters will make the decision on the ballot come November...
As your Senator, I will OPPOSE:
- Federal funding for abortion
- Federal ban(s) on abortion
The GOP tradition of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory??
I used to think "pro-life" meant that you wanted abortions outlawed. Lake not only opposes a federal abortion ban, this statement is a repudiation of an Arizona abortion ban. The "pro-life" "Christian" candidate in Arizona is asking the Democrat governor to REVERSE an abortion ban!
Let me explain why she is doing this (as much as I can without knowing her thoughts).
There is an argument to be made that not every political office at every level needs to be engaged in the issue of abortion. This is Trump's argument; let the president focus on national security, emergencies, foreign diplomacy, and let the issue of abortion turn back over to the states. This was the opposite of what happened during the Civil War, when the nation split and millions of brothers killed each other over a federal mandate on slavery (that's the reductionist version, I know).
Trump knows that making the 2024 election about top-level abortion bans, now that Roe has been overturned and We The People are able to shift the battle to local and state laws, serves in the interest of Joe Biden, which is why Joe Biden is running daily attack ads about abortion in the hopes of turning out mass numbers of women.
Trump, and allies like Lake, don't want the 2024 election to be about abortion. The vast majority of Americans support abortion limitations, but the vast majority also support abortion at "reasonable" levels (not that killing babies could ever be reasonable, but I am putting it in their perspective).
Here is the argument: In a swing state like Arizona, if the election is about the border, inflation, jobs, security, and competence, Biden and the Democrats lose. If it is about abortion, there is a good chance Democrats win.
And if Biden gets re-elected, it will be codified abortion and open borders ... and there won't even be an America. Whatever replaces it will be a total abortion state.
As Trump argues, without winning elections, "we will have nothing other than failure, death, and destruction."
So, because Arizona's top court reverted back to a 160-year-old law, it will put abortion directly in the limelight. Trump, Lake, and others identify this as a threat. In addition, many who are more passionately pro-life than them understand that it would be better to have someone quasi pro-life in office so pro-life leaders can get a ton accomplished in the background, than to have the abortion-without-limits candidates in office (remember how France just codified abortion in its constitution?).
I'm not saying this will please God Almighty compared to complete and total abortion abolition, but simply that we are discussing shrewdness and political elections, and why some like Lake are charting this course.
Lake wasn't the only Republican beating that drum:
Yeah, that's a "keep abortion legal" statement.
It's wild, but the Republican party is really the "Big Tent" party now. You can't disagree with anything over in the Democrat camp. You must toe the line. Abortion for All, or Nothing!
Over on the Republican side, there are many different points of view, and the tent is getting more diverse all the time, compared with the diVeRsiTy on the Left.
The question now?
How to direct this bigger and bigger collective of people with differing views toward actual pro-life action without capitulating and becoming the party of Bill Clinton's "safe, legal, and rare." How do we take our nation, with a majority of people who support abortion, and work like Wilberforce to make our laws reflect God's law (that scary "Christian nationalism" they keep talking about).
There are major issues with this stance, both morally and factually.
He compares the legalization of slavery to bans on abortion. That's backwards. If you think people who supported chattel slavery are the type of people who supported abortion bans, your worldview and understanding of history has gone screwy.
Let me wrap this up since some of you want to yell at me in the comments.
I understand that abortion abolitionists will get angry about some of the nuance that I'm discussing here, and we're talking about the deaths of babies, so it is right to be angry.
If it angers God (and it does), then we should feel outraged as well.
But how will we use that outrage? Peoples and their kings have had all sorts of difficult situations before them. How can they choose what is tactically expedient without sinning in the process? How can they be shrewd for God's glory, but in a way that doesn't lead to capitulation?
I'm not defending everything in the statements of Lake or the other Arizona Republicans. But I do want to extract the nuggets of wisdom in their arguments as we consider how to apply it.
