Opinion

QUAY: The Impending Exile Of The Pro-Lifers

OPINION
Annual March For Life Held In Washington, D.C.

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Grayson Quay News & Opinion Editor
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Less than a year ago, cheers of victory rose in front of the Supreme Court as the fall of Roe v. Wade gave the pro-life movement its biggest win in half a century. All the momentum seemed to be going one way. We’d secured Omaha Beach, and we wouldn’t stop until we took Berlin.

Today, that optimism has vanished. Calls for “consensus” and shouted accusations have replaced the cries of joy. If the Republican Party continues on this trajectory, the result will be nothing less than the total expulsion of pro-lifers from mainstream American politics.

There are plenty of reasons for the GOP to panic. In 2022, death won six out of six state-level abortion ballot measures. Even in deep-red Kansas, a referendum declaring the state constitution provided no right to an abortion failed 40-60, the same margin by which Trump won the state in 2016. 

Similar measures are pending in other states, and if Kansas isn’t safe, nowhere is. Even Republican Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, in whose state every single county has gone red in the last five presidential elections, admitted to me that he was nervous about the referendum in Oklahoma. Stitt said pro-life Oklahomans would focus on portraying the Democrats as extreme on the abortion issue, a strategy that has yet to actually work. (RELATED: Samuel Alito Says He Has A ‘Pretty Good Idea’ Who Leaked The Dobbs Opinion)

Patrick Brown of the Ethics and Public Policy Center tried to cheer up his fellow pro-lifers by noting that Republican Govs. Mike DeWine of Ohio, Brian Kemp of Georgia and Greg Abbott of Texas all decisively won reelection in 2022 after restricting abortion. It’s true, but it’s not particularly comforting. Pro-life politicians can win, but the pro-life position itself is deeply unpopular. 

The only way to save red states is to make it harder to get abortion on the ballot, a move Stitt said he’d consider. This might work in some places — it already failed in Ohio — but it’s also overtly undemocratic. Not a great look, especially for a party that’s lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections.

The humiliations continued. In early April, Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court flipped liberal after Judge Janet Protasiewicz scored a decisive victory by promising to strike down the state’s pre-Roe abortion ban. Republican state lawmakers, who enjoy supermajorities in both chambers thanks to heavy gerrymandering, have the votes to impeach Protasiewicz, but once again, the optics are awful. 

It’s possible these setbacks are temporary. Passing Obamacare led to a crushing defeat for Democrats in the 2010 midterms, but most liberals probably agree 12 years later that it was worth the cost. But if the defeats continue to accumulate, the GOP will face a dilemma: Ease up on abortion, or go all-in on a (probably futile) bid for minority rule. 

More Republicans will start to say what they dared not say before Dobbs — “If it weren’t for these pro-lifers, we could win a lot more elections.” Just look at the United Kingdom’s pro-choice Conservative Party, which has been in power since 2010. Of course, it was on the Conservatives’ watch that it became a crime even to pray silently near an abortion clinic, but the important thing is winning elections. 

After the Wisconsin race, journalist Richard Hanania declared the “pro-life position” had become “an albatross around the necks of Republicans.” The electoral incentives for finding an off-ramp on the abortion issue are strong.

Former President Donald Trump, who previously blamed the disappointing 2022 midterm results on pro-life extremism, said on April 20 that abortion should be left to the states. A few days later, he evaded the question of whether he’d sign a 15-week federal abortion ban. He did, however, promise a solution that would leave “everyone … very satisfied.” (RELATED: ‘Unfit To Lead’: Pro-Life Groups Blast Trump For Saying Abortion Should Be Left To The States)

Vivek Ramaswamy, another Republican running for president, told me he believes the legality of abortion is a state issue and that the federal government should focus on promoting policies to reduce the demand for abortion. 

GOP presidential candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was slightly more aggressive. “I do believe there is a federal role on abortion,” she said in a late-April speech. “Whether we can save more lives nationally depends on doing what no one else has done to date, and that is to find consensus.” 

For many Republicans, “consensus” seems to mean leaving abortion to the states, in which case we’ve already reached it. Others, such as Haley and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, think “consensus” requires one last push, probably a federal limit with exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the mother. A 15-week ban would outlaw roughly six percent of abortions, which is better than nothing. 

Neither scenario would satisfy the pro-life movement, though. Even if a 15-week ban passed, we’d celebrate and then get back to work pushing for tighter restrictions. Moderate rhetoric is fine if it gets us to the next win, but every consistent pro-lifer knows there can be no consensus on killing innocent babies. It’s like slavery — all or nothing. Once you’ve really internalized the belief that abortion kills a baby, you can’t stop. Ever.

Continued pro-life agitation will hurt Republicans at the ballot box. The U.S. is growing increasingly secular, and the GOP will have to appeal to socially libertine “Barstool conservatives” if it hopes to survive. Soon, the whole party will be echoing the warning Ann Coulter issued after the Wisconsin Supreme Court flipped: “Pro-lifers: WE WON. … Please stop pushing strict limits on abortion, or there will be no Republicans left.” (RELATED: Pro-Life Group Alleges The FBI Is Spying On Its Operations)

And so, the purge will begin. “Forced birthers” will become the new John Birchers.

The Republican surrender on abortion won’t happen all at once, of course. They’ll continue calling themselves pro-life, but in practice they’ll defer to the consensus while perhaps tinkering a bit around the issue’s edges. If any candidate attempts to challenge that consensus, the party will make sure he loses his primary. Pro-life PACs will have to either shut their doors or start grading politicians on a curve.

Exile from the GOP won’t mean the end of the pro-life movement. We can still run crisis pregnancy centers, adopt unwanted babies, donate to registries for mothers in need, pray and protest outside abortion clinics and even engage in civil disobedience. But it will mean the end of abortion as a live political issue. 

The Republican Party will go from strength to strength at the ballot box. A subset of right-wingers influenced by the pseudonymous Bronze Age Pervert will rejoice in the knowledge that fewer abortion restrictions means fewer black Americans. And the moderate Republicans who insisted, above all else, on “lowering the temperature” will get their wish. And while they enjoy the quiet, the industrial-scale slaughter of the unborn will proceed with the full blessing of American law. 

That will be the legacy of consensus — a nation morally equivalent to Carthage or Tenochtitlan, where the price of civic harmony is paid in innocent blood.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.