Heeding Lincoln's Wisdom Can Heal Nation

I don’t like discussing abortion. Many of my conversations with people on this subject have not ended well.

Mostly because I don’t completely fit on either side of the debate.

In December, I listened to the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. There were two memorable moments for me.

The first one happened when Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked, “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?”

According to Gallup, only 25% of Americans currently have either a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the Supreme Court. Gallup has asked this specific question since 1973 when this number was 45%.

Confidence in the court peaked twice in 1985 and 1988 at 56%. It has steadily declined since then.

The other memorable moment was when Justice Samuel Alito asked Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar about whether a case can be overruled when it was “egregiously wrong at the moment it was decided?”

At that moment, I realized that at least five justices were willing to overturn Roe.

The only real surprise for me was Justice Kavanaugh. During his confirmation hearings, Kavanaugh said that Roe was “settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court.”

Justice Kavanaugh also said that Planned Parenthood vs Casey (1992) reaffirmed Roe v Wade (1973). He called the Casey decision a “precedent on precedent.”

In Casey, the opinion said, “Adoption of the undue burden standard does not disturb Roe's holding that regardless of whether exceptions are made for particular circumstances, a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.”

This means that states could not restrict abortion prior to viability (23 to 24 weeks).

In the interest of full disclosure, I grew up in a mostly pro-choice Republican family. At 18, I began to think that abortion required some restrictions, but I never really thought the decision was going to be overturned.

Instead of wasting time in the courts, I thought pro-lifers needed to promote safe sex to reduce the number of abortions. In the last decade, the growing extremism among the Republicans has made me more of a centrist on abortion.

In 2012, Republican candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock lost winnable Senate seats in Missouri and Indiana because they didn’t believe there should be a rape exception for abortion.

In 2012, Mitt Romney won both states. Romney was pro-life but he believed in the exceptions of rape, incest and a mother’s life.

According to Gallup, many Americans share my mixed views on abortion. In May 2022, the American people believed abortion should be legal under any circumstances (35%), legal under certain circumstances (50%), and illegal in all circumstances (13%).

From 1996 to 2022, Gallup has shown consistent support for abortion in the first trimester by over 60% of Americans. In May 2022, only 36% of Americans supported abortion in the second trimester, and 20% supported abortion in the third trimester.

According to a 2002 survey, 77% of Americans have had sex and 75% have had pre-marital sex by age 20. By age 44, 99% of Americans have had sex, 95% had pre-marital sex, and 85% had married.

Abortion in the first trimester is popular for a reason. It is unlikely that most states can venture far beyond the boundaries set in Roe and Casey.

There is also still a chance that liberal activists will pressure Democrats to end the filibuster and codify Roe by November.

Our country cannot remain stable indefinitely when most people do not respect our institutions. The only way to reverse this damage is for our politicians to stop foisting so many controversial issues to the courts.

A few weeks ago, the Lincoln Memorial celebrated its 100th anniversary. If you have never been there, it’s worth visiting.

To the left of the Lincoln’s statue, the Gettysburg address is inscribed on the north wall. Lincoln’s Second Inaugural is inscribed on the south wall.

Understanding Lincoln’s wisdom can help us fix our broken political system.

Our politicians need to find a balance between upholding our nation’s highest ideals, as Lincoln did in the Gettysburg address, and finding ways “to bind up the nation's wounds” as Lincoln did during his Second Inaugural.

We need to elect politicians in both parties, who will negotiate in good faith to manage our biggest differences before they reach the courts.

In his book How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) Dale Carnegie wrote, “Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn — and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”