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The presidential debate was unsurprising — still full of lies, still, as any political debate, avoidant. One wishes that some neutral ground of language could be established. Both the candidates and the hosts used such biased language that it often completely obscured their meaning. Both candidates essentially lied about the real meaning of various policies, distracted by loaded terms like Project 2025, which has taken on a uniquely sinister aura in the minds of both candidates. The candidates, like essentially everyone in the world, displayed their garbled principles based upon the perceived emotional instincts of the general public — that is what running for office is all about, I suppose.
I will take as an example the issue of abortion, or “right to reproductive healthcare,” discussed towards the beginning of the debate. Is this a right that people are owed? Is it valid to call abortion “healthcare,” a term used by Harris?
One of the hosts, Linsey Davis, paraphrases Harris as saying, “women shouldn’t trust you [Trump] on the issue of abortion because you’ve changed your position so many times,” bringing up the time Trump changed his position on the Florida’s proposed right-to-abortion constitutional amendment, which he will be able to vote on as a Florida resident. Trump does not seem to have a particular personal disgust for most abortion, but he probably considers it imprudent to stray too far from the conservatives in his coalition. Trump has certainly changed his mind — or his message — on abortion… at least in emphasis.
This amendment is a response to a recent Florida bill that bans abortion past the gestational age of six weeks, except in the usual exceptional cases (rape, incest, human trafficking) in which case abortion is banned after 15 weeks. There are also various funding restrictions, and restrictions around how legal abortions may be performed. The proposed amendment, on the other hand, would state that no law could “prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”
These bills are both non-absolute, allowing for certain ages and cases when abortion is allowed, although of course, the six-week or 15-week ban is directionally preferable to people who dislike abortion. The most philosophically consistent positions about when a non-person becomes a person are either too early or too late and are rejected by the general public — in the first case, for utilitarian reasons, and in the second case, by a fundamental sense of evil. The majority of states ban abortion after viability (at some earlier stage), although the question of exactly when a fetus is viable is unclear as medical technology improves.
A bill that actually treated abortion like murder would be wildly unpopular. The in-between space is ethically mysterious — but as president, it’s easy enough to just not deal with it. Senator Vance, Trump’s running mate, said that Trump supports states’ rights on the issue and would probably veto a federal ban. (Notice how the reporter implored him to promise this.)
Trump repeatedly talks about abortion in “the seventh, the eighth, the ninth month.” Whenever he does this, Harris makes her signature confused-scoff face. No one would ever get such a late abortion, probably, but it isn’t strictly illegal everywhere. (Only about 1.3 percent of abortions happen after 21 weeks, and seven months is well after 21 weeks.) It is easy to excuse abortion of someone who is almost invisibly small, almost just a possibility. It is difficult to excuse abortion of someone who is clearly a baby. Therefore, people seem to think that such late abortions just don’t happen unless it is truly a life-or-death situation — which is generally true, until it isn’t, because there isn’t a national ban on such actions (which, I suppose, would only make these more difficult to procure). Trump also talks about babies being “executed” after being born, which doesn’t literally happen — if he meant something specific, he should not have used euphemistic language.
Does it matter what Harris and Trump think about this issue? It is unlikely that an abortion ban or a national right-to-abortion bill could get through the legislature, and the latter would have to face the conservative court — a court solidified as conservative by Trump, but not a court that is an extension of his will. Nevertheless, electing Republicans (even non-conservative Republicans) will, of course, make it more difficult for Americans to get abortions.