"Rape, Incest, and Life of the Mother"
Exposing the American Abortion Grift and How Bad Faith Actors Will Break the Right Wing
Donald Trump has been teasing us about his position on abortion. Posted to Truth Social on Monday was a video of him officially declaring his position on national abortion policy where he declined to endorse a national ban. He deferred to states' rights regarding the issue.
I anticipated this response from Trump. It is a sensible stance to take both politically and systematically. It is just as much a safe position as it is a constitutionally viable one.
However, the reaction from Trump supporters were not as simple.
The announcement brought to light the growing factionalism of the (Right Wing) RW, and it is squarely placed on the shoulders of the religious right. Abortion isn’t merely a policy issue for these people – it is an ethical issue, a matter of life and death, heaven and hell. For others, it is a chess piece on the greater board of organizational decision-making.
The Future of the Right Wing
Incoming cultural RW figureheads, such as Richard Hanania, make it known that a pro-choice stance is a requisite feature of American policy. I predict ideology-driven politicking will not be the norm in the next ten years.
Others have taken great issue with Trump’s position. The Arizona Supreme Court has curtailed Trump’s attempt at neutralizing the issue by resurrecting an 1864 law aiming to ban nearly all abortions but for the life of the mother. Despite this, key states demonstrate that, especially among suburban women, abortion is the most important policy issue potentially driving forward the national outcome of the election.
It is apparent to me that the crux of RW success right now falls largely (if not, solely) on the issue of abortion; the agential position and bodily autonomy of females. And yet, the RW is completely inept at messaging the issue in an optically effective way.
Who is to Blame?
Yes, the religious right is largely to blame for the debilitated political messaging, but they are not the only ones.
Phyllis Schlafly, arguably the single most powerful enemy of the women’s liberation movement (and a devout Catholic!), was prolific in framing how the modern RW views and contends with abortion policy and feminism. She, along with other figureheads in the religious right, made it an excruciatingly polarizing issue. She created an environment where the question of abortion was one of personal ethical standing. Conservatives, who were largely religious to begin with, found it difficult to make amends with supporting abortion or feminism, while also maintaining their religious faith.
Schlafly’s single-handed destruction of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) became a nationally mobilized front of religious conservatives and John Bircher Americans who were primarily fixated on family-oriented policy and anti-feminist sentiment. Along with this was anti-abortion zealotry like the United States had never seen before. The organization Eagle Forum was created out of this mobilized network of activists, an organization yours truly used to work for.
In the following years, anti-abortion non-profits would emerge to take advantage of this highly lucrative movement. Some would say they would even grift off of the sentiments of these people. It has been revealed for one unnamed pro-life organization, that on average 3 million of the usual donations go towards individual salaries, with the founder making over $270,000. Almost zero is given to pregnancy centers. This is not a unique case.
The audience that Schlafly and others of her ilk have courted, those primarily of anti-intellectual sentiment and most susceptible to populist movements, has brought Trump to power in 2016. Unfortunately, ingratiating oneself to such movements has been ineffectual in terms of proper abortion policy messaging to curry the favor of American centrists. Considering how important this policy issue is in this election cycle, it may cost us the election entirely.
I am not saying this to completely ignore or shun the religious right; modern renditions of which include the QAnons, isolationist Libertarians, or InfoWars subscribers; they are still a valid voting block of the modern RW.
However, we should begin to slowly culturally siphon off their influence because it is apparent that because of these people, GOP political messaging is discombobulated, and it may cost us success in 2024.
The anti-abortion groups are no different than the philosemitic groups in that both are special interest groups who seek to control the politics of a larger group through emotional blackmail and intransigence. Scrape'em off.
Great article Daniella.
Yes, the pro-life movement has an iron grip on the GOP, but in some ways it's admirable. I'm currently writing an article on how the anti-transgenderism movement needs to make support or opposition to trans ideology the 'litmus test issue'. People like Richard Hanania and Eric Kauffmann have talked about an anti-Woke equivalent to pro-life or NRA, a single-issue movement that totally captures one particular party; I think it's time to just do it.