Standing On Principle

(Standing On Principle)

Republicans are now the Majority Party in the House because its voters b y and large agreed with its principles. These standards include classic conservative ideas such as lower taxes a secure border and so on, That being said, Republicans hold certain ideals that, if they were not so believed, then one could not call themselves Republican. Two issues that are defining the modern GOP as a specific repudiation of the left. One is obviously abortion. The other is the issue of "biological men" participating is women's sports.

Abortion has been decried by conservatives since the Roe decision in 1973. Throughout succeeding decades and alternating Democrat and Republican Administrations, meaning configuring the Supreme Court in one ideological direction or the other, until lightning struck, Then Senate Republican Majority Leader McConnell demurred in President Obama's own pick for the High Bench, current Attorney General Merritt Garland, gambling that the next one in the White House would be a Republican. And he was, Donald J. Trump.

Trump, while the Republicans were still on control in the Upper Chamber and due to the rule change where Justices  can be approved by simple majority so, the Senate was able to approve three new conservative members to the Supreme Court. As the latest abortion case emerged from Appellate and District Courts. the potential for a Roe reversal rose dramatically, And after a leak that such a decision was inevitable and that is how the Court did indeed rule. Major mis-conceptions then arose.

Abortion, pre-Row had states to regulate the procedure on their own, The 1973 Decision made it the law of the land so the reversal as handed down last year merely retuned things status quo ante. State policy determines procedure availability, However, Republican legislatures and certain executive mansions, responding to what they see as mandates. put in place certain levels of abortion "bans" Such policies might work with conservative Republicans but what the issue has also done is to alienate more independent voters. Case in point, such a measure in Red State Kansas failed.

Speaking of Republican principles. the House, the Body voted clarity in the matter of women's sports, in essence, if one wishes to participate women's sports, one must declare as a biological woman, like being born without "equipment," placing it somewhat crudely. But the "logic," or a lack thereof, is that if "men" can partake in women's events, then invariably they prevail as men are more "masculine, " again putting it crudely, and at the collegiate level, schools benefit because "men," as "women," can dominate sports and collegial acclaim is a benefit.

Neither of these positions are universally supported. But being pro-life and limiting women to women's sports is Republican DNA. It is true that the GOP could alter these stances to gain in popularity but that would mean altering their core identity. That is something Democrats do as a matter of course.