As a general rule, I'm not much of a fan of sports metaphors, because they always seem to fall short. However, once in awhile I will indulge in the practice. My apologies ahead of time.
For half a century, pro-life elected officials across the land have been running bad plays. Instead of simply invoking the self-evident humanity of the unborn child, and the Constitution's explicit requirement that they be equally-protected, in every state, they have come up with a dizzying array of immoral, unconstitutional, counter-productive regulatory gimmicks that are really nothing more than bad substitutes for doing the right thing.
Here in my home state, a decade ago, with the help of my friend Tom Shaw, we offered those pro-lifers a moral, constitutional, clean equal protection bill to end abortion in Iowa once and for all. They buried that bill before it could even be considered in committee, or have a single public hearing.
Five years ago, with full control of the Iowa legislature and the Governor's office, they passed an immoral, unconstitutional, counter-productive "heartbeat" bill, which was, predictably shot down immediately by the liberal state supreme court. Then, Dobbs came down from the US Supreme Court, and the pro-lifers thought that they would simply begin to enforce their "six week" "heartbeat" bill. Again, predictably, the state's highest court said "no."
And so, how do the pro-lifers who completely control the law-making process respond? Tomorrow, in special session, they're going to make the exact same immoral, unconstitutional, counter-productive, oath-breaking error that they've been making for fifty years. They're going to meet in special session and pass another awful "heartbeat" bill.
It's overtime. The other team is ahead. It's fourth down, and the ball is on the two yard line. The ball has been snapped. The pro-lifers are rolling out to the right, with not a single defender between them and the goal line and the win. And what are they determined to do? Spike the ball and lose again.
Except, this isn't a game. Thousands, nay millions, of innocent lives are on the line. The very basis of our form of government and our claim to liberty is at stake.
Why do they refuse to stop this holocaust when they have the governmental power to do so?
If it really was a sports team, you'd think they'd been paid off by the bookies, and they would be forever banned from playing the game. Seriously.