In addition to loving American Thinker, the only conservative site on the internet that offers the depth and breadth that comes from curated contributions from volunteer writers, I am a very big fan of the podcasters at the Daily Wire: Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, and Andrew Klavan. I don’t agree with them on everything, but I enjoy their intelligent takes and humor. They and I agree that JD Vance did a wonderful job during the vice-presidential debate, but they all missed how well he did on the abortion issue.

When Walz was asked about abortion, he launched easily into the shtick that it’s all about women’s healthcare while boasting about what a wonderful state Minnesota is for abortion. He had to lie, of course, about the law he signed, which does allow abortion up to and including birth. Nor would he admit that the law removed the obligation to save infants born alive after botched abortions. To date, at least eight infants have been left to die.

What pro-life conservatives expected to hear from JD Vance, who is himself a pro-life conservative, was a full-throated defense of life and a legalistic analysis of how the Dobbs decision works. They didn’t get it. Ben Shapiro sums up the resulting disappointment:

Ben is right that JD did none of that. Instead, JD focused on supporting women. This was an incredibly smart move on his part (as is Melania coming out in favor of abortion).

CBS framed this debate for women...specifically, for suburban women who know (as do all Americans) that things are awful and who also know that, on the pivotal, day-to-day matters (the economy, the border, national security, etc.), Trump is the better candidate. The only way to grab these women is through abortion, which most see as the ultimate women’s issue. It’s been a sure winner for the Democrats for decades now.

I can attest to the siren song of abortion. Before I had my children, I was totally pro-abortion. I’d grown up in a Democrat home and lived almost my entire life in pro-abortion circles. This was my normal, while the pro-lifers were “religious nuts.” Also, significantly, like so many Democrat adults today, I lived in a childfree environment. In my teens and 20s, I probably met five babies. They were more hypothetical than real.

It wasn’t until I had my own children and watched my mother age that I was finally able to accept what the pro-life movement had said all along. When you’re looking at a fetus, a baby, a child, an adult, and a very elderly person, the only two differences are their size and ability to care for themselves. When you kill a fetus, you are doing the same as if you were to kill a baby, a child, an adult, or an old person. It’s the same person.

I know those who have always been pro-life find it astounding, but this is a huge cognitive leap for people raised in the world of abortion. This means that there was no way in a two-minute debate response that Vance could convince suburban women that they’re wrong on abortion. Touching it would have been deadly.

He rightly recognized that the reason that abortion matters so much to these women is that, whether they’ve had a baby or been around babies, they viscerally understand the most pivotal thing about pregnancy and motherhood: Your body and life are no longer your own. Unless you’re a psychopath or someone destroyed by substance abuse, from the moment you become pregnant, your body belongs to the baby and from the moment the baby is born, your life belongs to that child.

It’s always been this way, of course, since time immemorial. However, before modern times, women couldn’t stop the process. They had to yield to it, with good grace or ill. Nowadays, though, they can stop the process. Therefore, they must be persuaded that motherhood isn’t just a choice, it’s a good choice and one, moreover, that won’t destroy their lives but will enhance them.

We currently live in a death cult world. Humans are painted as parasites on the earth, and babies as parasites within women. Two minutes of JD saying we must respect all lives and that he will work to end abortion would not have ended this death cult mentality. It would only have alienated suburban women (including those who have and love their children but who still cling to abortion). All they would have heard him say is, “The Republican party wants women barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.”

Wisely, JD chose to allay their fears. He was telling them that the Republican party will not turn America into The Handmaid’s Tale (an insanely stupid book that I took seriously during the Reagan years). Instead, Republicans will support women in every way if they choose life. Women voters need to hear that.

That’s true whether they’re fanatic pro-abortion Democrats who believe in unlimited abortion, the more moderate Republican women who support abortion early in a pregnancy while recoiling from it later in the pregnancy, or—and this is true for almost all Americans—those who believe that abortion is still appropriate in cases of rape, incest, or the mother’s life being at risk.

Abortions in America will not end just because the federal government says they should end. Laws matter, but what needs to change in America is the death culture—and JD Vance wisely spoke to that by assuring women that a Trump administration will make the death culture much less inviting. The Bible says, “choose life,” and JD Vance effectively said that a Trump administration will make that an easier choice.

Image by AI.

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ADDENDUM

Because the experimental podcast is still a gypsy, with no place yet to call home, I'll slot it at the end of a few posts for the next week or two. If you like Rumble:

If you like YouTube:

And if you prefer your podcasts on Apple's podcast player (where things are still under Bookworm because, as I said, this is a gypsy without home).