With “abortion rights” taking center stage over the last week after a leak signaled the Supreme Court is ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, Democrats have been making all kinds of wild statements about what they are going to do next.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren appeared to have a stroke on camera on Tuesday, as she gyrated about, proclaiming how she was going to “fight” the probable Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe. Meanwhile, Rep. Cori Bush proclaimed that not only should abortion rights be “codified” by Congress, but that the government should force pro-life individuals to pay for abortion services.
But on the topic of codifying the ability to kill babies in the womb into the nation’s laws, it appears Democrats have gotten out over their skis again. Sen. Susan Collins, who has criticized Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked majority decision overturning Roe, is apparently a no-go, citing a multitude of issues.
Susan Collins a NO on D bill to codify abortion rights. Says it’s too broad and “doesn’t protect the right of a Catholic hospitals to not perform abortions. That right has been enshrined in law for a long time.” She voted against similar bill in Feb. The bill will stall next week
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 5, 2022
I’m constantly amazed at how politically stupid the modern Democrat party is, especially under the tutelage of President Joe Biden and Sen. Chuck Schumer. It is at least conceivable to write a law that Collins would support. After all, she’s a pro-abortion zealot, despite being a “Republican” from the blue state of Maine. Yet, instead of sitting down with her and coming up with a narrow bill that contains some moderation and nuance, Democrats went full “Leroy Jenkins” again, not even stopping to consider that they could lose the votes of some who otherwise might side with them.
This is exactly what happened with the so-called “Build Back Better” bill. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema were ready to hand their party leaders and the president a trillion-dollar spending bill that checked many liberal boxes. Instead of just taking the easy win, though, Democrats included pro-abortion measures that turned off Manchin and tax increase measures that turned off Sinema. In the end, they got nothing. No lessons were learned, I guess.
In this latest case, Collins rightly notes that the language in the pro-Roe bill does not even bother to protect religious institutions from having to perform abortions. That would be such an easy thing to fix, but Democrats won’t do it because they are so beholden to their far-left base.
To be sure, though, I’m not giving Collins much, if any, credit here. I find her position on abortion and her overall cowardice as a legislator to be pathetic. The only reason I don’t spend much time criticizing her is that she’s from a blue state. In that sense, she’s a necessary evil. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, on the other hand, is a totally different story, and she needs to be booted from office this year.
Regardless, it’s worth paying attention to just how little political skill the current Democrat Party leaders have. They had a chance to secure multiple Republican votes for a codification of abortion into law, securing at least a partial PR victory, but instead did the bidding of radicals. I’ll go further and suggest Joe Manchin won’t vote for their bill either. Heck, it might not even get 50 votes, which would be hilarious given the push to kill the filibuster over this. This entire spectacle is the Democrat version of “failure theater.”
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