Could the Unthinkable Happen to Anti-Abortion Politics


I like to repeat the quote of Ronald Reagan, "Politics is a thing where the unexpected often happens." This could be made more accurate by saying the "unthinkable," "unimaginable" or even "not fathomable" often happens. For convenience I'm rolling together the outcome of elections and decision handed down from the courts. We all know the latter reflect to one degree or another political thinking in the society.

Each reader knows an example. I'll pick out a few. One was the Roe decision making abortion legal across the United States. While people like me applauded the decision I know others who gasped. They thought it was impossible such a decision could ever happen. I felt the same way recently when it was overturned.

In recent history, the election of Donald Trump seemed impossible to people like me but the "unimaginable" happened.

I was once in the middle of such a thing when I issued the first Lesbian and Gay Rights Proclamation in North Dakota in 1984. Mail and phone calls flooded in. While there was support, many people were stunned in disbelief. They had never heard of such a thing; it was unthinkable to them. They were then certain the uproar would have taught me to never do such a thing again. I did it for ten years. 

We all know the current situation with the right to an abortion. Surely both sides agree what the various states decision to do may, probably will, change over time and that this change could make abortion available in more states or in fewer states.

There remains an "unimaginable" or "not fathomable" event out there. It is there, in my opinion, because of a Supreme Court decision recently that it must grant the same rights to an LGBTQ student group it grants to other student groups. 

That a Supreme Court majority went down the rabbit hole of religion to overturn Roe makes the future unpredictable. An unthinkable future to some Christians would be to allow, rather than ban, abortions based on a religious argument. This religious argument is now being made. Though it is seems impossible it could win it remains the impossible sometimes happens in politics (and law).     

 

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