Oh, sorry. Perhaps I should not have belittled Donnie for having small hands. That would be mean-spirited. Maybe I should have titled him as Donnie Dipshit. Anyway, this past week, Donnie was his usual confused and deliberately manipulative self. He went off the deep end trying to decide whether he was in favor of, or definitely opposed to, the people and legislators in of each state deciding the right thing to do, with regard to something that used to be guaranteed by a half-century-old Supreme Court precedent.
For the longest time now, Donnie has been crowing loudly about being singularly responsible for the over-turning of the Court's position established in Roe v. Wade, 1973. The premise adopted when Roe was overthrown, was that the decision about abortion rights should not be a federal government decision at all, and that it should be given back to individual states to decide this issue. But then, almost two years ago, the proponents of trashing Roe got what they have been hoping to achieve for 50 years, and Roe was thrown out like a used condom (sorry, since we are talking about reproductive rights, I couldn't resist).
This past week Donnie said words to this effect. The half-century long battle over Roe, has now been taken out of the hands of federal authority, and "put into the hearts, minds, and votes" of the people, where it belongs. Now the people of every state can do the right thing. Yeah, he said that.
Oops. Donnie has, not quite in the same breath, but pretty quickly, back-tracked on that point. Now, for the moment anyway, Donnie doesn't like what the state of Arizona has done on the issue. Arizona has decreed that since this issue is now up to them to decide, they have opted for returning to a statute from the 1860s, which mandates an absolute ban on abortion with only one exception, when the life of the mother is endangered. Incest, too? Nope. How about rape victims? Nope. Maybe when the fetus is unviable to survive and delivery "might be" problematic for the mom? Nope. Sorry, no abortion, not until it is definitely threatening the life of the mother. And any doctor or other health-care professional who performs or assists in such abortions is now liable for "murder", and subject to arrest and imprisonment. This old statute was written back when women couldn't even vote. Married women were the property of their husbands. This law was written back before Arizona was even a state. But all the way back to its authority, we go, says twenty-first-century Arizona. And what does Donnie have to say about this, now that the issue is in the hands of the people of Arizona to do the right thing? This past week he has stated that what Arizona did is the wrong thing, and that surely it will be "fixed" very soon. How will it be fixed? Donnie shied away from that question, but it definitely needs to be "fixed", he reported.
At least for now, it seems, Republicans feel that such an extreme ban on abortion is not "the right thing". As some commentators have alleged, the current situation for Republicans is akin to the dog who caught the car it was chasing, and can't figure out what to do with the darned thing. If states get the ability to decide the right thing, and fail to decide the right thing, why not make it a federal issue, so that the UNITED States (you know, as in ALL of them), can maybe "do the right thing". If there is such a convenient thing as "THE right thing" to do (Donnie's words, not mine), why not make it so everybody can enjoy it? Hmmm? We could have that. Or we can have fifty different interpretations of what the right thing to do happens to be, with some states opting to just go back to the 1800s. Yeah, that sounds like a plan. You almost have to feel sorry for the dog, don't you? What the heck does a dog need with a car, anyway? All he ever did with a car is pee on it. He can just go back to peeing on trees. Dogs have been peeing on trees since way before the 1800s. Please pick a century in which to live. You know, so our country doesn't go to the dogs.
So, let's see now. Republicans finally did what they have wanted to for the last half century. They did it with the Dobbs decision (2022), overturning Roe. And they were proud of what they accomplished, barking about it. Just ask Donnie. Well, no, you would have had to ask him the week before last. He's changed his mind. You see, now a sizable majority of the people seem to think it wasn't "the right thing" to do. And the "wrong thing" is now the Republicans' fault. In an election year. Hmmm. Boy, howdy, was this thing well thought out, or what? I wonder if there is still enough time for Donnie to get back to loudly boasting about it again? Probably not. He's got a felony criminal indictment to worry about for the moment.
