Political blogger notices Ben Cline’s two faces on Supreme Court abortion ruling

Gene Zitver, who maintains the Cline Watch blog, offered valuable insight into the response of Sixth District Congressman Ben Cline to the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.

First, there was the statement that Cline’s congressional office put out.

“Today, the Supreme Court of the United States applied sound constitutional principles in its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

“The Court’s decision leaves the debate over this important issue to the people of the fifty states and their elected representatives.

“As Justice Alito said wring the majority opinion of the Court, ‘We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by a constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely – the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty …’ The right to abortion does not fall in this category.’

“With its ruling today, the Supreme Court is to be commended for its decision to finally heed the Constitution on this issue and return the abortion debate to the people’s elected representatives.”

Pretty straightforward, legalistic. Yeah, the legal reasoning is archaic – apply the standard created here by Alito to the right to bear arms, and yesterday’s majority ruling in the New York gun law case goes in the other direction – but, at least Cline, who has a background in law, is playing it down the middle.

Not so much the statement from Cline on his campaign Facebook page.

“Today, #LifeWins,” Cline posted there. “This is a historic day for American and the long fight to protect the unborn!”

The congressional office statement “frames abortion as strictly a matter for states to decide, with no reference to the moral issue. He doesn’t seem to be celebrating,” Zitver points out.

The campaign statement, “clearly aimed at what he perceives as his base, he’s in a celebratory mood,” Zitver said.

“Is he nervous about a backlash among the majority of voters who support at least some abortion rights? Perhaps he has reason to be – even in the Republican-leaning Sixth District,” Zitver said.