The Truth About Politicians And Abortion

There has been a lot of talk about abortion in recent days. In a recent interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, when asked about women who seek illegal abortions Donald Trump said “The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.”

“Should abortion be punished? This is not something you can dodge,” Matthews asked Trump again.

“Well, people in certain parts of the Republican Party, conservative Republicans, would say, ‘Yes, they should be punished,’ ” Trump responded.

This answer should come to no surprise and is exactly what most Republicans would expect their party’s front-runner to say. Yet, Donald Trump took heat from virtually all national news outlets, even conservative news outlets.

The truth is that his answer was not a political answer, it draws lines in the sand. Something no career politician will ever do. His answer is a simple and logical one. If abortion is illegal and someone is guilty of getting the operation anyway, then they have broken a law. That simple.

He did not say that he would lock up women and throw away the key, but a law without consequences is no law at all.

This happened the exact same day that the FDA unilaterally changed the labeling, dosage, and time frame on the “morning after pill”, formally RU-486, and undermined the rights of quite a few states along the way.

Naturally the pro-choice side of the argument hailed this as a major victory. That underscores the problem. The FDA is not supposed to be a politically minded body that hands out victories to one side while undermining the laws passed by sovereign states and their voters.

Several of the states questioned the motive by the FDA and accused them of putting women at risk for political motivations.

Again it comes down to politics. There is so much money and power to be had from the argument and the rhetoric, that there is no incentive to reach an answer. The voters are only given two options and neither wants to do a thing but get loud, draw a paycheck, and win the next election. Usually with the same promises that they failed to deliver in the last election.

So maybe we should stop jumping down Donald Trump’s throat every time he says something that wasn’t written by a room of 6 writers and practiced for hours so that when it finally comes up he can sound like a life-long politician. Maybe, we should stop being shocked at honest answers to honest questions (even if they are baiting out sound clips).

While Trump is certainly no politician, that has not-so-secretly been his appeal all along. Is it any wonder that politicians and those that make their living off of politics hate him?