It's nothing short of an attack on women's basic human rights and civil rights, and it's something that women in America are going to have to fight against with everything they've got. They want to challenge Roll verses Wade, but my humble is that this is not the case we want to bring to the Supreme Court because I think
this want to lose. So that was Senator Kirsten Gillibrand doing the saying the same thing all the Democratic presidential candidates said yesterday about the war on women and all that sort of stuff. And then Pat Robertson, who's on the other side, he's a televangelist. He's on the other side who has problems with the Row Versus way, but doesn't think this is the way to go about it right, although I think he's missing a key point or two.
And David French, senior writer for National Review, senior fellow at the National Review Institute, has written an absolutely terrific and thought provoking peace about what Alabama and Georgia are trying to do. And David French joins us, Now, David, how are you. I'm good. Thanks for having me. It's our pleasure. Really enjoyed your your reasoning in the article, why don't we lay out for the folks the legislatures in Alabama and Georgia understand this law will not take
act effect anytime soon. What are they trying to do? Well, what they're trying to do is create the right vehicle for challenging Row versus ways. And the reason why they've drafted the law with this in mind and in some
really important ways. One, Uh, this is a law unlike a lot of the restrictions on abortion that you've seen, these more modest restrictions for example that um, for example, say you know an abortion clinic has to meet these kinds of medical requirements and facility requirements, or that abortion doctors have to have admitting privileges. Uh, this is far beyond that. There are beyond that, and in what they've done because and the reason why they've done that, one
this is a matter of moral conviction. And the other reason is that report could uphold every one of these modest abortion restrictions that are before it now, every single one of them, without touching Row or Casey. They could just say, well, you know, this is just the modest restricts and abortion. Wow, we're really we're really having very inequality of voice quality. David, I don't know if there's anything. Yeah, sorry, it's just kind of phasing in and out. But anyway,
we'll plunge on. Uh. But so they want to challenge Row though, And I like the part of your piece where they're talking about establishing the personhood of the baby the fetus. Why is that so important? Yeah, that's important because of suchs and nine of the rosy Rade opinion by Justice Blackman, And in that he says, if the personhood of the feet of the fetus is established by constitutional laws, in the case for Row for abortion collapses.
In other words, once a baby is protected as a person under law, a person cannot lose its life without a right to do process for example. Um, and so then the abortion case for abortion collapses. And so what these both Alabama and Georgia are doing is they are saying that they're that an unborn baby in these states is a person. They're bestowing under state law personhood on the baby. And now they're saying, well, we have established
personhood under ROW, the case for abortion therefore collapses. Now the counter argument to that is that, well, under Row, the only thing that matters is whether the federal Constitution establishes personhood, but that's not really traditional American law that the the parameters of individual liberties can be expanded by state, not contracted by states. And so what they're arguing is that by bestowing personhood on the child, they're expanding the
liberty of the child. Now, the counter argument would be, well, then you're constricting the liberty of the mother, and that would be the core fight at the Supreme Court. But this is aimed directly at that section nine of the Row opinion. As the sponsor of George's legislation said, his bill wasn't waving its fisted row. It's answering Row versus Wade exactly. So it's exactly aimed at part of Justice
Blackman's opinion. I think it's a very smart Now, again there's still guarantee that it will that it will win the day, but I think it's a very smart and it's a it's a philosophically and morally and scientifically, I believe, proper approach to the abortion issue, because the core assertion of the pro life movement is that that is a person,
a very small person inside the mother's wound. Right would the court have to establish at what point it becomes a person though, because I could get pretty thorny, well, you know, and that's that is a essentially that they could say is that the Court doesn't establish that the states do that the Constitution of the US is silent on the state's ability to establish personhood beyond that, they cannot restrict personhood beyond which the you know, to a
level the beyond the Federal Constitution. So the Supreme Court doesn't have to decide personhood. The Supreme Court can say the Constitution of the United States is silent on abortion, and it permits states to define personhood in a way that's more expansive than the Federal Constitution does and leave it to the states, which is I believe, the proper constitutional approach. I'm glad you brought that up. David French is online senior writer for National Review and Senior Fellow
at the National Review Institute. I had one of my favorite professors in college a thousand years ago. Um made the point that the Road decision removed the well, it distorted the politics of it. States could no longer vote in a meaningful way on what they're people believed on this extremely difficult topic. Um, and you make another point in your piece about how it's distorted national politics presidential elections, for instance, What did you mean by that? Yeah, So
think about this. If I live in the state of tendency, and I do UM, and I want to impact the abortion laws of my state, by far, by far, the most important election that I will cast a vote in is the United States presidential election. Because the president appoints a justice or can appoint justices of the Supreme Court, my own state Supreme Court, my own state laws are far less relevant to the actual right to an abortion than the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the United States.
And this is something that has has meant that national politics, now for a generation since Roe have become have escalated in intensity because you hear, you have one of the most emotionally fraud issues, if not the most emotionally fraud issue in the entire all of the United States politics, and your ability to impact it is at best indirect by voting for a president who appoints a justice, and then once the justice is um and Um in office, he does what he wants to do. And so what
I say is when you if you overturn row. If you were to live in New York and you want to protect abortion rights, then the most important election that you're going to vote in is going to be like your local state legislature. Right. And as you make the point, we've got this savage, bitter partisanship at the national level over an issue that we will have teeny tiny incremental indirect effects on as as voters, and so it's not
worth all the hatred exactly. So it's distorting our politics massively, and what we need in this country we need to de escalate presidential elections. We need to de escalate national politics. Good luck with that. Yeah, but the citizens of California have too much power over the citizens of Texas and vice versa. I mean, this is this is not what the founders intended. And when you're talking about a hyper emotional issue like abortion, that is the constitutional United States
is silent about it. This isn't the first Amendment, this isn't the second Amendment, this isn't the fourth or fifth Amendment. The Constitution is silent on that. That is a classic recipe for resolution by the states. And the more I think we can communicate that to people, that let Alabamabama be Alabama. Let New York be New York and have the pro life and pro choice movements fight it out on that turf. I think it's going to be better for our nation. Is certainly going to be better for
unborn children. Its state after state after state announces it's it's pro life intentions. And look, if people want to build and create pro choice jurisdictions, they can do so. Hey, David, I wanted to ask you this question just because we bring it up a lot, and I don't ever hear it anybodywhere else talking about it being hyper emotional and you know, such a charge edition, all that sort of thing. The polling shows that most people, even Democrats, are uncomfortable
with abortion after the first trimester. It's, you know, the controversies all in that first trimester or whether it should be allowed at all, But after that, the vast majority of people who say no, that ain't cool after the first trimester. Why can't we get some sort of ground going there in terms of the battle, Well, and I don't think most people know those poll numbers, by the way, listening, you know the way I take it through the news, right, Well,
I think there's two reasons for that one. The number one most important reason is because this issue has been removed from the democratic process, largely by the Supreme Court of the US. We haven't had an opportunity to have national debates and reach a consensus and limitations that reflects public values. We have not been able to do that ever since Rows. So that's number one, and then number two. These national polls are very deceptive because the regional and
state by state differences are dramatic. So you might have a state of New York with a whole, you know, ton of people who live there, they might have a supermajority for a less restrictive abortion regime. But then you might have a state of Alabama that has a supermajority for as far more restrictive. Okay, well, that reinforces the argument about letting the states, you know, or jurisdiction, very jurisdictions,
make their own decisions. Then exactly exactly, And you know, people will point to national polls to try to rebut what Alabama is doing. But you know, you know who knows Alabama politics better than national posters. Alabama politicians, and
they voted a massive supermajority for this. Alabama law. A massive in the Missouri um is just about to pass an eight week abortion ban, ban on abortions after eight weeks, and the margin in the House there with one seventeen to thirty nine and in the Senate four to ten.
So if you're throwing a national poll at a local southern politicians their board, right right, David matter, David final question, in the limit of time we have, Unfortunately, what are the chances you think this gets all the way to the Supreme Court either of these cases. Let me put it this way. I'm pessimistic, but I'm not as pessimistic
ause I used to be. I think the more states that pass a heartbeat bill or a bill like Alabama's, the greater the likelihood that it will get to the Spreme Court, simply because the Supreme Court will realize that it has a popular ground swell on its hands and it's going to either have to say once in you know, at least decide this for a whole another generation, and say, no, we're gonna open this up. The Constitution is silent on abortion. We're going to open up for the states, or we're
going to reaffirm row. Either way that's going to be very clarifying. But when you're talking about an immense, geographic, contiguous section of the United States of America now is declaring itself unequivocally for life, that increases the chances that
the Supreme Court will take this up. David French, Senior writer for the National Review, Senior fellow at the National Review Institute, David, we can talk to you all day, but instead of that will have a link to your piece so folks can find it easily great to talk to you. Thank you, thanks so much for having me our pleasure. Isn't it corrected that the woman involved in the ROVERSUS Wade case ended up pro life at the
end of her life. Yeah. Yeah, This might be one of those issues that I never thought would move in my lifetime, like a lot of them out there that have recently, and that is going to get some movement. Yes, yeah, and and honestly, especially if you can let the States tailor the approach to this incredibly troubling issue to the
will of their own people. Um that I think the solution, the quote unquote solution for everybody will be much more comforta when wass um, I know they didn't have the they certainly didn't have the three D pictures of babies that they have now where you just see a baby in there. Um, did they even have ultrasounds? Did they have could you hear a heartbeat back then? I don't think you could even hear a heartbeat back then. So it was completely just you know, a conversation with with
no knowledge of what's going on in there. For the most part um you you would hope this wasn't true, but it is absolutely true. The more focused and abstraction comes, and the more becomes and the more real it becomes, the more details, your understanding of it becomes a completely changed. That's why they think polling has changed on this issue.
It's here in the heartbeat, it's seen the pictures, it's right, Oh that's a kid, right, And there are plenty on the left to the major media have a great deal of sympathy for who are okay with offering the baby after it's born, which which is an extremist position supported by virtually no but insane and listen. I respect people's views on this topic on all sides, I really do. It's a thorny one, it's a hard one. I don't respect you on people's on all sides that view you
just put out that crazy. I mean, on both sides. You know, I lean this way, I lean now, I find I get it. But yeah, that that's an incredibly extremist view, and we are getting a absolutely fraudulent view of what people think about that from our lying, lying media, and the varant are strong and Jetty