Quote:
Originally Posted by lozen
NO Abortion is a losing cause for the GOP and if they had a brain they would agree to 14 weeks or 15 weeks. If they do we all know the Dems will never agree to that . S o they win either way
The problem for republicans is how it came to be that the party opposed abortions.
In the 1970's a political party sprang up across the US called the "Right to Life" party. It started costing Republicans close elections vs Democrats by winning 5% to 10% of Statewide votes. So the Republican party absorbed the Right to Life party but there was no national announcement of exactly what was agreed.
All of a sudden the entire Republican party refused to support Birth Control methods (including pills, IUDs, condoms, etc.). The party opposed any Sex education that wasn't entirely about abstinence. All this was done to cater to the former Right to Life party members who were also opposed to premarital sex and birth control (likely for religious reasons)
But now it puts them in a tricky bind. If they agree to 14 or 15 weeks for abortions across the country, the Right to Lifers will likely re-form as a party whose intention is solely to eliminate abortion which they consider murder. Or they will just abandon the Republican party.
The other problem for Pro-lifers is that trying to validate life starting at conception means that Abortion Doctors cannot be the only ones held accountable for "murder". All women who plan and get abortions would essentially be guilty of premeditated murder. That wouldn't sit well with a vast majority of the country so instead Pro-Lifers have let it go (oddly even when in 2015 Trump said that pregnant women should get punished if they get an abortion and then had to quickly walk it back).
I think your point is probably a decent one if they settle on like 15 weeks and allow women who are in physical danger to get abortions (as well as if the potential child would be still born or severely medically incapacitated at birth). But I doubt that will happen. It would rip the Republican party apart.