Wow, yeah, Ralph Northam stepped into it with his dumb comments on late-term abortion.
But, that doesn’t make the whole controversy over legislation that would loosen restrictions on the procedure gemmed up by Republicans this week any more politically viable this fall.
They would have you believe that Democrats are for ripping babies out of the womb, and how we know this is, this is what Donald Trump is saying Democrats want to do.
“That’s what it is. That’s what they’re doing. It’s terrible.”
Um, no, it’s not. No, they’re not. Yes, you are.
The legislation in question, introduced by Del. Kathy Tran, D-Fairfax, would remove from current state law the phrase “substantially and irredeemably” in defining the risk a mother would face by continuing the pregnancy.
The bill would also allow one physician to certify the need for the procedure, instead of the three required in current state law.
Second-trimester abortions, under Tran’s bill, could be performed in a clinic, instead of a hospital.
The bill didn’t make it out of subcommittee, but it was generated into a flashpoint by the partisans with edited video that made it seem like Tran acknowledged the bill would allow what amounts to infanticide.
Northam, a pediatrician, then dolted his way through an answer on the bill’s language in a radio interview.
Seriously, that was foot inserting into mouth, that interview.
(But, hey, I wanted Perriello.)
Anyway, so, now, the world is coming to an end, based on the Facebook feed of that person from high school that you don’t really remember, who doesn’t need much of a reason to go off on the libs, and now has this one.
Tran, as you might guess, has received multiple death threats, which is par for the course for what happens when the partisans on that side play politics.
Which, do they really think they’re going to sway a single person who isn’t rabid about abortion to switch sides in November by playing up this nonsense?
You know the answer to that is a big, fat no.
You will see this front and center this fall, of course, the idea being to raise some money, whip up the base, make sure they head out to the polls.
It’s not actually about abortion, but you know this already.
If they really wanted to make abortion illegal, why didn’t they try when they had both houses, the Supreme Court and the White House the past two years?
The assumption from the partisans is the center-right holds its nose and stays under the tent.
None of the whipping up the extremists makes sense if the center-right bolts.
Democrats, of course, will work to pick off those voters, particularly women, who, we remember, played a key role in Trump’s upset win in 2016.
There has been a lot of conjecture about how they will break in 2019 and especially in 2020.
I’d suspect Democrats heading into the Virginia state elections this fall will be able to run a counter on this one highlighting Todd Gilbert’s mansplaining in the subcommittee meeting and the death threats afterward.
Basically, not the slam dunk Republicans think here.
Column by Chris Graham
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