I’m glad Trump’s legacy could end Roe v. Wade
For many conservatives, myself included, the goal of making abortion not just illegal, but unthinkable, is a driving force behind our interest in politics.
When news broke Monday night of the leaked draft opinion in the pending Supreme Court case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, I know I wasn’t alone in feeling a rush of conflicting emotions.
More than anything, the headlines felt surreal.
The end of Roe might firmly be on the table, something I felt sure many of my fellow conservatives in 2016 were making less probable, rather than more, by electing President Donald Trump.
I didn’t vote for him.
Trump delivered for conservatives
If the leaked opinion holds, I will have been wrong. The gamble I was unable to make back then will have paid off.
Friendships were tested, and some fractured, by my skepticism of Trump. I wasn’t sure if he would double-cross the social conservatives who helped him get elected, and was concerned over how many were willing to abandon long-held principles to defend a president I found personally unfit for office.
During the battles over Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, I wondered whether the fight was worth it when there were other nominees in the wings who would be much more reliable votes to overturn Roe v. Wade.
But Trump’s brazenness and eagerness for the fight, as well as his self-evident disinterest in the finer points of conservative jurisprudence, counterintuitively made it easier for advisers like Leonard Leo to select impeccably qualified men and women who had come up through conservative circles.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell played hardball to get justices who treat the Constitution seriously confirmed. And the three Trump-appointed justices may prove to be a crucial voting bloc to make it easier for states to protect unborn children from the violence of abortion.
I am still uneasy about the long-term ramifications that Trump’s bare-knuckle style of politics will have on the conservative movement. I worry about how crass our politics has become.
What happens if Roe v. Wade ends
And I sincerely hope that conservatives who would describe themselves as “pro-life” and “pro-family” don’t end up like the proverbial dog who caught the car, uncertain where to go next. The movement should, ideally, use the moment to champion a public policy agenda oriented toward making parents’ lives easier, expanding tax benefits for families and easing the pain points that make starting a family a challenge.
Beyond protecting the child in the womb, conservatives must place strong family and communities at the center of social and economic life, ensuring moms in crisis pregnancies will have the material and social support necessary to support their new addition.
Overturning Roe v. Wade will allow states to choose their own path on abortion, and hopefully inspire more efforts to advance a pro-family agenda. If Justice Alito’s draft ends up being the majority opinion, my friends who pulled the lever for Trump in 2016 made the right gamble. Trump’s antics and divisiveness will have been a high price to pay to secure the end of the Roe regime.
But it will have been worth it.