Made a few edits to the charts (removed the "part two" from the first chart, changed the description on the second chart to reflect nuances in when exactly the first trimester ends).
Also, general reminder to play nice in the comments.
A bit of advice for both sides of the abortion issue.
Sen. Susan Collins is the real deal in terms of integrity.
Unlike many members of Congress on both sides of the political divide, she often will refuse to go along with measures that the majority of her party support. She prefers compromise when it comes to crafting legislation.
I worked for the better part of two decades as a reporter and editor at the Bangor (ME) Daily News, and had many face to face meeting with Susan long before she became prominent as a U.S. Senator.
The Maine I knew back in the 60s and 70s has become a purple state in recent decades. During her most recent bid for re-election, out of state Democratic organizations outspent her by such huge amounts that almost all pendants predicted she would lose the contest.
Maine voters often become "damn Yankees" when it comes to accepting outside interference in their elections. Obviously, Sue is still the senior senator from Maine.
Before we moved to Florida, my wife and I often saw her attending the same Sunday mass as my wife and I.
No, I am not a Catholic, but rather a seriously lapsed Presbyterian. But I go with my wife to her preferred church. After many years I still mumble my version of the Lord's prayer.
Now, if only I could master knowing when to stand up and when to sit down during a Catholic Mass.
As a person who writes political analysis, I appreciate the pragmatism of this position. As a woman, I have a pretty serious problem with my bodily autonomy coming in half-measures. Either I have personhood or my body is governed by committee - there's not much ambiguity about that.
MY on Slow Boring: I think we should take a winning center-left position on an important issue and improve peoples lives.
Slow Boring subscribers: Well of course Matt this is just obvious sensible stuff. Nothing to argue about here. Lets just make jokes in the comment section.
The Left on Twitter: How f'ing dare this MY guy. What a garbage neoliberal sellout. The Green- New-Deal-Third-Trimester-Abortion-Medicare-For-All-Trans-Rights-For-Preteens-Woke-Utopia is the One True Way. If you subscribe to this guy you must be an alt-right secret Trump voter. We don't want your sort in OUR utopia.
On a related note, I would argue that Hillary Clinton's stances on abortion in 2016 were likely a important factor in why voters considered her to be less moderate and more extremist than Trump. While she probably raised the salience of race and immigration issues more than she should have (e.g. Alicia Machado, etc) her substantive positions on those issues were not really that far to the left. On abortion, however, her campaign was pretty forceful and showy about throwing out her husband's "safe legal and rare" approach. This was the first time I noticed the idea of repealing the Hyde Amendment having any real juice rather than just being something batted around by left-wing writers - when Clinton's campaign pushed for it.
I believe Ed Kilgore at NYMag (but maybe it was someone else) wrote a piece on this in 2015 or 2016, observing that Clinton's approach on abortion was indicative of a larger effort by pro-choice activists to stop treating legal abortion as a necessary evil and instead start celebrating it as a "positive good." Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the link, so either I'm misremembering who wrote it or the article's been taken down.
As someone who is Moderate left-leaning living in a very progressive community, it was only recently that I learned that most western European countries allow abortion up to between 10 and 16 weeks gestation without restrictions coded in statute. It seems like many people I know can't even envision a position of compromise as is evident by these western European laws. So without compromise, I think, we will never get abortion coded into law that will satisfy most people.
There's a lot of misinformation online about what the actual abortion laws are in other countries, including Europe. For example some countries will have a hard stop at a certain number of weeks, so Americans believe that's the absolute cutoff- but what gets missed is that one can 'apply' for a later abortion, and it's usually granted based on medical advice. But American newspapers just report the former part
The left seems to have changed its view on what being pro-choice means over the last few decades.
When I was a kid we had Randall Terry and it was easy for pro-choicers to assume that the anti-abortion movement was about punitive action against women, and "safe legal and rare" clearly framed the issue as "having a prohibition-style banning of abortion would be bad."
Since then, it seems like the left has dropped the "and rare" part as conceding some kind of ideological ground to the pro-life movement, and the left tends to take maximalist positions - a summary of MattY's post today might be "these maximalist positions are going to result in minimalist outcomes."
Can anyone point me at someone arguing the _ideological underpinnings_ of this change on the left? I feel like I hear lots of people on the left talk about abortion rights from a maximalist position (meaning: there's basically _zero_ concern for the fetus, it's 100% about the choice of the mother to do whatever she wants) as an axiom. I'd like to read a good steel-man of the position.
So I guess I am a bit concerned that the first I heard about a Collins and Murkowski proposal to protect abortion rights was here despite the fact that I subscribe to and read the Washington Post and the New York Times. And when I googled it just now for more information I did not find hits from either of those publications. I think it is pretty insane to not get whatever we can if we are serious about protecting women in red states from the worst. I live in California and would be willing to house and chauffeur a woman from Utah seeking a later term abortion necessitated by late information about her pregnancy, but there is no reason to overburden our clinics with the bulk of abortions that could be provided in a world with some abortion rights protections. I guess if Manchin won't touch the filibuster for this then getting to 60 is unlikely -- but it would be worthwhile to put people on the record on something that reflects the popular consensus.
Confused. The entire piece advocates paying attention to popular opinion and adopting a moderate position that satisfies most people yet permits most abortions.
But there is this line: "Personally, I think the mushy-middle view of abortion is probably wrong."
One important thing to bear in mind about the situation in Europe is that many women there who have difficulty getting a later-term abortion will go to more liberal countries like the Netherlands, the UK or Sweden to get one, if they have the resources. (Maybe Brexit has changed the UK's status as an abortion rights haven.)
Your analysis is spot-on and far be it from me to defend Chuck Schumer. But part of his thinking might be that, since the Murkowski and Collins vote also has zero chance of 60 votes, he might as well virtue-signal.
If the premise is that this is purely a message bill (seems accurate), then it seems like a bad idea to do a message bill where most voters don't like the message.
"I don’t find it all that outrageous that the Supreme Court looks to be saying that in the future it will decline to veto abortion-related legislative acts. That being said, there is zero indication that the anti-Roe judges are making a principled move in that direction. They are simply saying that with the court in more firmly conservative hands, they will now be vetoing progressive legislation but not conservative legislation."
This is simply wrong. Alito takes great pains to spell out in the opinion the circumstances in which he takes state laws to be subject to "veto" by the court: if they explicitly violate the first eight amendments of the constitution, OR if they are antithetical to a "scheme of ordered liberty," with "liberty" understood as the 14th amendment understands it.
You can say that that's the wrong standard, or that "liberty" should be understood in some other way, or that Alito et al aren't being sincere about wanting to use that standard, or that they won't apply it consistently in practice. Those are interesting conversations and I'm at least somewhat sympathetic to such arguments. But saying "there's zero indication ... [of] a principled move in that direction" is confusing at best, given that Alito spells out the principles he wants the court to abide by in such cases.
per usual this nuanced analysis is right on the mark. I especially like Matthew's observation that, to regain traction against an activist reactionary Supreme Court majority vetoing progressive legislation, liberals and Dems must project a broadly credible brand of popular constitutionalism. This is something liberals and Dems have to date never recognized the need for much less understood how to do it. I have often written about this failing and suggested how to correct it: https://newrepublic.com/article/162305/democrats-court-reform-liberal-judiciary.
Made a few edits to the charts (removed the "part two" from the first chart, changed the description on the second chart to reflect nuances in when exactly the first trimester ends).
Also, general reminder to play nice in the comments.
A bit of advice for both sides of the abortion issue.
Sen. Susan Collins is the real deal in terms of integrity.
Unlike many members of Congress on both sides of the political divide, she often will refuse to go along with measures that the majority of her party support. She prefers compromise when it comes to crafting legislation.
I worked for the better part of two decades as a reporter and editor at the Bangor (ME) Daily News, and had many face to face meeting with Susan long before she became prominent as a U.S. Senator.
The Maine I knew back in the 60s and 70s has become a purple state in recent decades. During her most recent bid for re-election, out of state Democratic organizations outspent her by such huge amounts that almost all pendants predicted she would lose the contest.
Maine voters often become "damn Yankees" when it comes to accepting outside interference in their elections. Obviously, Sue is still the senior senator from Maine.
Before we moved to Florida, my wife and I often saw her attending the same Sunday mass as my wife and I.
No, I am not a Catholic, but rather a seriously lapsed Presbyterian. But I go with my wife to her preferred church. After many years I still mumble my version of the Lord's prayer.
Now, if only I could master knowing when to stand up and when to sit down during a Catholic Mass.
As a person who writes political analysis, I appreciate the pragmatism of this position. As a woman, I have a pretty serious problem with my bodily autonomy coming in half-measures. Either I have personhood or my body is governed by committee - there's not much ambiguity about that.
Every. Single. Week:
MY on Slow Boring: I think we should take a winning center-left position on an important issue and improve peoples lives.
Slow Boring subscribers: Well of course Matt this is just obvious sensible stuff. Nothing to argue about here. Lets just make jokes in the comment section.
The Left on Twitter: How f'ing dare this MY guy. What a garbage neoliberal sellout. The Green- New-Deal-Third-Trimester-Abortion-Medicare-For-All-Trans-Rights-For-Preteens-Woke-Utopia is the One True Way. If you subscribe to this guy you must be an alt-right secret Trump voter. We don't want your sort in OUR utopia.
Conservatives: *Evil-villain-who-knows-he-has-won laughter*
“we are not looking to compromise on something as vital as this.”
It's so important to Schumer that he wants to make absolutely certain that nothing at all gets done.
Since Texas and other Red states lean more conservative, the median position in those states could easily be a 6 week ban.
On a related note, I would argue that Hillary Clinton's stances on abortion in 2016 were likely a important factor in why voters considered her to be less moderate and more extremist than Trump. While she probably raised the salience of race and immigration issues more than she should have (e.g. Alicia Machado, etc) her substantive positions on those issues were not really that far to the left. On abortion, however, her campaign was pretty forceful and showy about throwing out her husband's "safe legal and rare" approach. This was the first time I noticed the idea of repealing the Hyde Amendment having any real juice rather than just being something batted around by left-wing writers - when Clinton's campaign pushed for it.
I believe Ed Kilgore at NYMag (but maybe it was someone else) wrote a piece on this in 2015 or 2016, observing that Clinton's approach on abortion was indicative of a larger effort by pro-choice activists to stop treating legal abortion as a necessary evil and instead start celebrating it as a "positive good." Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the link, so either I'm misremembering who wrote it or the article's been taken down.
As someone who is Moderate left-leaning living in a very progressive community, it was only recently that I learned that most western European countries allow abortion up to between 10 and 16 weeks gestation without restrictions coded in statute. It seems like many people I know can't even envision a position of compromise as is evident by these western European laws. So without compromise, I think, we will never get abortion coded into law that will satisfy most people.
There's a lot of misinformation online about what the actual abortion laws are in other countries, including Europe. For example some countries will have a hard stop at a certain number of weeks, so Americans believe that's the absolute cutoff- but what gets missed is that one can 'apply' for a later abortion, and it's usually granted based on medical advice. But American newspapers just report the former part
Thank you for not using the ridiculous trendy locution "pregnant people."
The left seems to have changed its view on what being pro-choice means over the last few decades.
When I was a kid we had Randall Terry and it was easy for pro-choicers to assume that the anti-abortion movement was about punitive action against women, and "safe legal and rare" clearly framed the issue as "having a prohibition-style banning of abortion would be bad."
Since then, it seems like the left has dropped the "and rare" part as conceding some kind of ideological ground to the pro-life movement, and the left tends to take maximalist positions - a summary of MattY's post today might be "these maximalist positions are going to result in minimalist outcomes."
Can anyone point me at someone arguing the _ideological underpinnings_ of this change on the left? I feel like I hear lots of people on the left talk about abortion rights from a maximalist position (meaning: there's basically _zero_ concern for the fetus, it's 100% about the choice of the mother to do whatever she wants) as an axiom. I'd like to read a good steel-man of the position.
So I guess I am a bit concerned that the first I heard about a Collins and Murkowski proposal to protect abortion rights was here despite the fact that I subscribe to and read the Washington Post and the New York Times. And when I googled it just now for more information I did not find hits from either of those publications. I think it is pretty insane to not get whatever we can if we are serious about protecting women in red states from the worst. I live in California and would be willing to house and chauffeur a woman from Utah seeking a later term abortion necessitated by late information about her pregnancy, but there is no reason to overburden our clinics with the bulk of abortions that could be provided in a world with some abortion rights protections. I guess if Manchin won't touch the filibuster for this then getting to 60 is unlikely -- but it would be worthwhile to put people on the record on something that reflects the popular consensus.
Confused. The entire piece advocates paying attention to popular opinion and adopting a moderate position that satisfies most people yet permits most abortions.
But there is this line: "Personally, I think the mushy-middle view of abortion is probably wrong."
One important thing to bear in mind about the situation in Europe is that many women there who have difficulty getting a later-term abortion will go to more liberal countries like the Netherlands, the UK or Sweden to get one, if they have the resources. (Maybe Brexit has changed the UK's status as an abortion rights haven.)
Your analysis is spot-on and far be it from me to defend Chuck Schumer. But part of his thinking might be that, since the Murkowski and Collins vote also has zero chance of 60 votes, he might as well virtue-signal.
If the premise is that this is purely a message bill (seems accurate), then it seems like a bad idea to do a message bill where most voters don't like the message.
Absolutely agree; but he could be thinking of it as a base mobilization message.
Yes, true, but - ugh.
Matt's written about base mobilization, and I agree with his take on it.
Also, while it is obvious that this is a message bill, my main point is that the Collins/Murkoski bill is also a message bill.
From what Matt said, it sounds like we might lose some D senators on the vote? That surprises me, but maybe it squeezes some Ds like Tester.
Great, make your own party members take tough votes for purely messaging reasons vs. making the other party do it. Awesome strategy Chuck.
"I don’t find it all that outrageous that the Supreme Court looks to be saying that in the future it will decline to veto abortion-related legislative acts. That being said, there is zero indication that the anti-Roe judges are making a principled move in that direction. They are simply saying that with the court in more firmly conservative hands, they will now be vetoing progressive legislation but not conservative legislation."
This is simply wrong. Alito takes great pains to spell out in the opinion the circumstances in which he takes state laws to be subject to "veto" by the court: if they explicitly violate the first eight amendments of the constitution, OR if they are antithetical to a "scheme of ordered liberty," with "liberty" understood as the 14th amendment understands it.
You can say that that's the wrong standard, or that "liberty" should be understood in some other way, or that Alito et al aren't being sincere about wanting to use that standard, or that they won't apply it consistently in practice. Those are interesting conversations and I'm at least somewhat sympathetic to such arguments. But saying "there's zero indication ... [of] a principled move in that direction" is confusing at best, given that Alito spells out the principles he wants the court to abide by in such cases.
per usual this nuanced analysis is right on the mark. I especially like Matthew's observation that, to regain traction against an activist reactionary Supreme Court majority vetoing progressive legislation, liberals and Dems must project a broadly credible brand of popular constitutionalism. This is something liberals and Dems have to date never recognized the need for much less understood how to do it. I have often written about this failing and suggested how to correct it: https://newrepublic.com/article/162305/democrats-court-reform-liberal-judiciary.
By now surely you have noticed that Joe Biden is no FDR.