Mecha pointed me to another key part of Drum’s post that I must have skimmed over. Specifically a post by Steve Benen:
Indeed, the evidence of conservative willingness to "compromise" on abortion is surprisingly thin. In 2005, for example, pro-life and pro-choice Democrats crafted the Prevention First Act, which aimed to reduce the number of abortions by taking prevention seriously, through a combination of family-planning programs, access to contraception, and teen-pregnancy prevention programs. Dems sought Republican co-sponsors. Zero -- literally, not one -- from either chamber endorsed the measure.
The bill never got out of committee (this was back in 2005 when Republicans controlled both Houses and thus the agenda) so no vote count is available. Also, while the immediate ban in South Dakota was defeated there are other laws on the books that could lead to a ban:
- Louisiana, Utah, and Guam have post-Roe laws that have been found unconstitutional but are still on the books. More states have old pre-Roe laws that might go back in forth.
- Louisiana, Mississippi, and both Dakotas states have laws would automatically ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is ever overturned.
So getting into the hard ball politics of this, the Republicans probably kept that bill in Committee because they knew it would give political cover to pro-life Dems and pro-choice Dems in districts hostile to reproductive rights. If it came to the floor, I suspect it would get some votes, but it matters that the Republicans can keep party line discipline on such an issue. We should expect such discipline to continue in the future.
Similarly, pretty much every political movement tries to achieve all their goals if they think they can. I tend to think that banning most drugs is a poor public health policy, but if I can just get the ban on pot (in small quantities at least) lifted I’d be a happier camper. If we get to the point where our prison population is cut dramatically than the issue loses most salience for me.
So the claim of willingness to compromises means that if they try for it all, and lose, then they might accept that loss. What Douthat is saying is that no middle ground available under Roe is good enough for him to say “fine, I give up.”
Does he provide compelling evidence of that? I think he does point to signs of popular support for compromise, but the idea that “crisis pregnancy centers” and “post-abortion counseling” are some sort of compromise position is ridiculous unless those centers are handing out contraception. I think that might change, abortion attitudes are relatively static when broken down by age, but younger people are more open to contraception. At this point, politician pro-lifers with proven willingness to cut deals to reduce the number of abortions are called Democrats. Until the Republican party can’t maintain its discipline on contraception issues there’s no reason to trust there’s a faction we can make a deal with.
I actually have some trust for Douthat and think he means what he says, but he’s not the one we’d be cutting a deal with. I think the best hope of getting a faction that would break the party-line would be substantial increases in the number of women in positions of power in the Republican party. Palin’s certainly not a compromiser, but with the shrinking percentage of white guys in the population the Republicans are going to have to start doing better with women if they want to staunch their demographic bleeding. Regardless, these are all hypothetical possibilities, none of them are worth giving up Roe for.
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