While disappointing, it is hardly surprising that a candiddate in the mode of Nikki Hailey would speak abortion as only another policy disagreement for politicians can reach consensus by merely splitting the difference. Abortion is one of those issues, though, where one can merely split the baby, because it involves literally dismembering babies. Our nation already has experience with such an issue where there cannot be common ground: slavery.
“Returning the issue to the States” does not resolve the issue or find common ground. Already some states are all but outlawing all abortions and some states are declaring it to be a moral good that must be spread across the nation. Having some pro-life and some pro-abortion states might the temporarily defuse the issue as well as clarify the arguments. As with slavery, though, the current political situation is merely a power-sharing arrangement, which is neither consensus nor permanent.
At one point, Democrats claimed that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” However, disingenous this slogan may have been, it tacitly acknowledged the moral evil of abortion providing some prospect of common ground. As with the Kansas-Nebraska act, though, Democrats renounced all compromise, openly proclaiming the moral rightness of aborting babies.
Pro-lifers have a duty to practice prudence in protecting the unborn, but a house divided cannot stand. Eventually, the United States will be all of one or the other.
Here is Nikki Haley’s quote from the column:
The next president must find national consensus. That might sound strange to many people. Under Roe, consensus was replaced by demonization, and let’s be honest: most in the media prioritized demonization. They stoked division, pitting Americans against each other. No one talks about finding consensus, everyone goes to the barricades and attacks the other side. They’ve taken a sensitive issue that has long divided people into a kind of gotcha bidding war. How many weeks are you for? How many exceptions are you for?
Now, imagine that this is 1860 and slavery is the “sensitive issue that has long divided people” rather than abortion. Lincoln offered not to change any policies concerning slavery where it existed with the intent of putting it on the path to ultimate extinction. No common ground was found. That “sensitive issue” was the barbaric, cruel, inhuman, “peculiar institution” of enslaving the “Negro, but not the systematic killing of them. Abortion is the systematic killing (sorry, termination) of the most vulnerable humans by dismembering them, starving them, scalding them, or removing their brain matter. Where do we look for common ground or consensus?