Proactive Politics: How Conservatives Can Flip the Script on Abortion

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Conservatives should secure victories on abortion whenever they can, however incremental. But we should never cede the moral argument. Rather, we must offer a bold contrast that disassociates us from the ugly holocaust America has tolerated since 1973.

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In sports, there’s a well-known saying: “The best defense is a good offense.” This strategy emphasizes proactive rather than reactive tactics, compelling opponents into a defensive stance to disrupt their plans.

The game is played at your tempo and not theirs.

Conservatives must apply a similar strategy to the abortion debate, by making the political left defend their barbaric commitment to treating the preborn like empty soda bottles that can be tossed in the garbage.

And Bill Maher, out of all people, has unwittingly provided conservatives with a blueprint for a counterattack. In a recent Real Time episode, a guest on Maher’s show, a writer for the Financial Times, questioned the relevance of abortion in the election, which, she maintained, was overshadowed by more important issues — like AI uncertainty, global unrest, and economic instability.

The fascination with abortion was “strange” and outdated, according to that columnist.

Maher disputed her objection sharply with, “Not if you believe it is murder. That’s why I don’t understand the 15-week thing. Or Trump’s plan, ‘Let’s leave it to the states.’ So, killing babies is okay in some states?”

What’s more, he critiqued the left’s portrayal of pro-life advocates: “I scold the left when they say, ‘Oh, you know what, they just hate women, people who aren’t pro-choice.’ They don’t hate women. They just made that up. They think it’s murder. And it kind of is.”

Although Maher sees abortion as murder, he remains untroubled by that fact, admitting, “I’m just okay with that. There are 8 billion people in the world. I’m sorry, we won’t miss you.”

The HBO host was trying to ding Donald Trump for being logically inconsistent, but in reality, Maher lifted the lid on the left’s perspective — they know what abortion is. Still, they’re fine with it because there are too many human beings on earth, and therefore, it’s no big deal to get rid of a few million here and there.

It’s precisely this moment — the candid acknowledgment of what abortion entails — that conservatives must challenge the left to confront and defend. The cold audience response to Maher’s blunt statement, including Piers Morgan’s characterization of it as “harsh,” unmasked a deep-seated unease with saying the quiet part out loud.

So, in the spirit of Maher’s honesty, conservative politicians should demand that progressives clarify the exact point when a preborn child deserves protection under the law and when he does not.

Seriously, let’s bust out the Karl Rove whiteboard and draw a line marking the stages of development, from conception to birth. Next, we urge progressives to indicate where on this line it’s a “baby” and when it is merely a nascent “clump of cells.”

Does the baby stage begin at conception when the “full human genetic code is present” — otherwise known as DNA? What about at five weeks when a heartbeat emerges? Oh, and out of curiosity, what non-living creature has a heartbeat? How about at nine weeks, as teeth and taste buds take shape, or at ten weeks, when the “arms, hands, fingers, feet and toes are fully formed?”

There’s also the 16-week marker when ears and eyes become responsive and at 19 weeks when the fetus “has its own unique set of fingerprints and can hiccup” — baby, or not a baby?

Or how about at 20 weeks when an ultrasound can spot the biological sex? By 32 weeks, the “fetus” can be safely delivered because most “organs are well-formed and ready for birth” — thumbs up or down?

Could it be that the “fetus” receives legal protection only while traveling through the birth canal, or does this query remain unresolved, even after birth, as one leftist governor had previously suggested?

Please show me, dear progressive, where on this timeline the preborn deserve legal protection and where they do not.

These questions aren’t just rhetorical either — they point to a glaring contradiction. If these developmental stages aren’t considered signs of life, how do we reconcile the disturbing allegations that Planned Parenthood was selling aborted baby parts for profit?

That, my friends, is what going on the offensive looks like.

It means not letting the left dictate the terms of the debate.

What conservatives shouldn’t do, on the other hand, is offer liberalism lite. That’s the path Kari Lake opted for, and it deserves rebuke. In rebuffing the Arizona State Supreme Court’s ruling criminalizing abortion, Lake said, “I chose life. But I’m not every woman.”

How is that reaction any different from the central “pro-choice” refrain we’ve heard over the last five decades?

Hint: It’s not.

Lake then tried changing the subject entirely by proposing to subsidize couples for having kids.

If you’re getting that whole I’m pro-life outside the womb too vibe, you’re not alone. That’s what it was — redirecting attention away from abortion to free government goodies as a form of “political cover.”

This is a territory where conservatives will routinely be outflanked by liberals, whose political lifeblood is in handing out taxpayer cash. Good luck trying to outdo a lib as it pertains to expanding the welfare state.

They will always promise more.

Conservatives should neither fall for this game nor play it, especially to avoid confronting the ghoulish nature of abortion. It smacks of desperation.

The days of “safe, legal, and rare” as a national consensus are long gone. The left rejects any gestational limit placed on the procedure because they’ve framed it as a moral infringement on a female’s body.

What right do legislators have to get in between a woman and her doctor, they self-righteously declare?

Our reply should be swift and pointed:

What right, you ask? The same right that inspired Abraham Lincoln to get in between a slave and his slave master — people should never be treated as chattel, the preborn included. Now, show me on this chart when a baby is not a baby.

The secular left, abetted by a sympathetic media, has glossed over the brutality of abortion. Yet, as even Bill Maher has acknowledged, the act is nothing short of exterminating an innocent life.

Conservatives, no doubt, should secure victories whenever they can, however incremental. But we should never cede the moral argument. Rather, we must offer a bold contrast that disassociates us from the ugly holocaust America has tolerated since 1973.

Liberalism lite doesn’t work.

It’s time to go on the offensive.

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