Thread by @DrCalumMiller

A guide to pro-life voting
After some vicious disagreements in the last few days that are shedding more heat than light, I put together a short thread on what is at stake in November 2024 🧵

Credentials: researcher at a leading university on abortion policy, published an academic paper specifically on the ethics of single-issue pro-life voting (), am a single-issue voter on abortion myselfcalumsblog.com/wp-content/upl…

In summary, both the benefits and the costs of voting for Trump have been underestimated. I personally would, on balance, vote (very reluctantly) for him given what is at stake, but the Never Trumpers also have a strong point that shouldn’t be ridiculed. The Senate is more simple: vote GOP

So first, recognise what can and can’t be done in politics. Most controversial legislation requires 60 votes in the Senate to overcome the filibuster, which is just not possible given the current balance of political opinion. So the Republicans should not be blamed for not passing national legislation on abortion. They can’t do so while the filibuster is in place, and they are committed to retaining the filibuster.

Incidentally, this makes all the discussion about vetoing a national abortion ban pointless – a national abortion ban would require 60 Senate seats for the GOP, which isn’t going to happen. In my view it would have been better for Trump and Vance to simply state sensibly and realistically what can and can’t happen rather than commit to vetoing something that will never happen and dividing the party. Nikki Haley did this quite sensibly (), as unenthusiastic as I am about her.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-…

On the other hand, the Democrats look like they want to abolish the filibuster, and could do so with a bare majority (50 votes plus VP) in the Senate, which is very realistic (they haven’t done so yet because Democrat Senators Sinema and Manchin opposed it – but they are retiring this year). So if the Democrats win the Senate, all sorts of radical legislation in favour of abortion is possible.

In addition to this, the Senate can always confirm or reject judicial candidates (including SCOTUS) with a bare majority. Given that the Democrats want to destroy the independence of the judiciary by packing the Court with as many pro-abortion/far-left justices as they need to win any case they want, the Senate has enormous importance. Roe v Wade could easily be reinstated within a couple of years, and much worse judgments beyond that.

This means that the stakes in the Senate are far higher than usual, and the stakes are already HUGE. Almost all of the Republican Senators are pro-life, and all the Democrat Senators are pro-abortion. For this reason, the pro-life case for voting Republican in the Senate this year is overwhelming. Everyone should do it (Collins and Murkowski, the pro-abortion GOP Senators, are not up for election this year).

What about the Presidential election? The President can’t do as much by themselves, but they can still do a lot. They can select candidates for the courts (including SCOTUS), they can wield the ever-expanding agencies and weaponise them against life (e.g. weaponizing the FBI and DOJ to clamp down on pro-life speech and activists, as they have done, along with HHS and the Department of Education, among others). They will have an impact on various other important developments in Congress (e.g. the budget, including whether the Hyde Amendment prohibiting federal funding of abortion will be preserved), and will exert political and cultural influence over their party and its elected officials in the short- and long-term.

Perhaps the biggest impact the President has – often neglected by those focused on the US – is whether USAID sends millions and millions of dollars to abortion providers in other countries. This will have an ENORMOUS impact and cannot be understated. Whoever is in the White House could potentially determine whether millions of babies around the world are aborted in the coming years, and long into the future. In terms of impact, this probably outstrips anything done domestically and should be one of the biggest factors in determining how to vote.

You might ask: but if Trump is pro-abortion, will it really matter whether he or Harris in the White House? The answer is yes. In reality, Trump doesn’t care one way or the other about abortion. This has been obvious for many years, despite some silly attempts to call him the “most pro-life President ever” in previous years. Vance is pro-life, even if he is making a (good or bad, you decide) strategic decision to offer some pro-abortion messaging to get elected.

More importantly, Trump will need experienced Republican political appointees to staff the agencies and make the decisions, and there will be far more of these who are pro-life than among the Democrats. Moreover, without needing to win another election, Trump will have minimal incentive to keep being pro-abortion while in office, and much more incentive to be pro-life (since the Republicans will have the power to impeach him – the Democrats won’t). In short, when you appoint a President, you don’t just appoint one person – you appoint an entire executive branch of government, with light years between the Democrats and Republicans on this count.

So what is the case for not voting for Trump (whether voting third party, voting Harris, or not voting)? If you are a single-issue pro-life voter, I see two main reasons not to vote for Trump, and I will say this: the Never Trumpers have a point and should be taken seriously. I do not think they are correct, but nor do I think they are crazy.

The first reason not to vote Trump is that he damages the pro-life brand, associating it with incompetence, lack of integrity, poor governance, misogyny, and all the other myriad vices that Trump amply exudes. To win the battle on abortion long-term, you need to win the culture. And it is much harder to do that when the pro-life brand is associated with people and principles like Trump. This is a very serious cost, especially at a time when trust in pro-life people is the lowest in decades.

The second reason not to vote Trump is that it could make pro-abortion sentiment mainstream within the GOP. From an international perspective, this is a very dangerous place to be, especially in a two-party system. Having a party that is solidly pro-life in a two-party system is a huge advantage that should be held onto. In the UK, the Conservative Party knows that pro-lifers/social conservatives will always vote for them as the “lesser of two evils”, and so they move ever towards more abortion/progressivism, knowing that there is no electoral cost to it. There needs to be a point at which the base deserts the party, or else the party will forever be incentivised to drift leftwards because they can rely on “lesser of two evils” votes from the base. I don’t think you are at the point of desertion in the US, but it is an important consideration and you should have clearly in mind the point at which you say “we are not going to support our candidate”.

So what should you do if abortion is a pre-eminent issue for you? First, you should vote for the GOP in the Senate. The case for doing so is overwhelming and could impact potentially millions of lives in the US and around the world.

As for the Presidency, I won’t say whether you should vote for Trump or not. There are strong arguments either way. I think the balance at the moment is in favour of reluctantly voting for him. But if you do so, you should make clear that you are only giving the GOP so many chances. One option is to give Trump/Vance a chance in power, and if they turn out to be as pro-abortion as their messaging indicates, encourage your Senators to pull support from them, or even impeach them. Since your Senators will have to rely on your support in future, they have to take you seriously. Maybe you can think of other ways to hold them accountable once they are in power.

If you don’t vote for Trump, I understand your position. But then I would say it is even more important to vote GOP in the Senate, which could limit a large amount (though not all) of the damage a Democrat executive could do, particularly in preventing radical justices from joining SCOTUS but also in blocking legislation and the abolition of the filibuster.

I know all this might lose me some friends or supporters, but I think it is a very important strategic question and we need to be clear-sighted about the pros and cons of this civil war within the GOP. Without this kind of honesty, the GOP will just fight itself and everyone will lose. Maybe, as I suggested above, there is a compromise that can be found – that holds Trump and the GOP accountable to the pro-life base without ceding too much ground to the Democrats short-term.

The end.