Trump and Harris on abortion

I watched the Trump and Harris debate tonight. I think Harris did better than Trump. I think Trump missed a lot of opportunities. I think the moderators got too involved by participating in the debate, correcting Trump and arguing with him when that was Harris's job, not theirs.

Speaking of missed opportunities, Harris articulated her pro-choice views very clearly. She thinks the right to abortion is rooted in a woman's right to decide what to do with her own body. Trump, however, did not articulate his point of view very clearly or respond to Harris' argument, and so missed an opportunity. This is what I think he should have said in his two minutes:

If abortion were justified on the basis that women have the right to decide what to do with their bodies, then abortion would be justified through all nine months of pregnancy. However, most people, including pro-choice people, do not think abortion is justified through all nine months. Consistency demands that abortion is not justified on the basis that women have the right to decide what to do with their bodies.

Why is it that even pro-choice people are against late stage abortions? It's because the more developed the unborn become, the harder it becomes to honestly deny that it's a living human being. The fact that it's a living human being is the reason even pro-choice people oppose abortions in the third trimester in spite bodily rights. That means whether it's a living human being is the real issue, not bodily rights.

There is no stage of development in which something that is non-human turns into a human. The unborn is human through all stages of development. It's alive through all stages of development, too, because otherwise there would be a miscarriage. That means it's a living human being through all stages of development. If we oppose abortion in the latest stages of pregnancy because it's a living human being, and if it's a living human being through all stages of pregancy, then to be consistent, we must oppose abortion through all stages of pregancy.

I don't know whether Trump is really pro-life or not. I've never seen any evidence that he really understands the issue. I get that same impression with a lot of republicans who claim to be pro-life. I think they claim to be pro-life because they think they have to in order to get elected. Fewer of them are doing that these days because the tides are turning.

I have thought for a long time that pro-lifers needed to focus more on the moral question of abortion rather than the legal question. I've expressed this point of view to a lot of pro-lifers who have disagreed with me. Since Roe v. Wade got overturned and a few states have banned or limited abortion, there has been a huge backlash. There are more pro-choice people now than there were before. I think this is owing to the fact that the law was changed before hearts were changed. The law was changed before moral points of view were changed. I think I was right that pro-lifers should have focused on the moral question before the legal question and that the moral question should have had the greater emphasis. I said more about that here.