Sun Tzu And The Art Of Alabama's Abortion Ban
The Supreme Court sent a clear signal on abortion. Alabama completely missed that signal.
(Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
Consider this headline that very few imagined they’d be reading today… or ever: “Pat Robertson says Alabama’s abortion law is extreme and has ‘gone too far.’” How in the world did Alabama end up with an abortion restriction that’s got the 700 Club in a tizzy? How can someone who characterizes abortion as “murder” think any law is too extreme? These are all good questions that boil down to a couple of fundamental points: (a) Pat Robertson is a savvy political operator; and, (b) Alabama Republicans are not.
Alabama is getting all the heat this week after passing the most restrictive facially unconstitutional abortion law in the country, pledging to imprison doctors for up to 99 years for performing an abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest. Not that such exceptions make much sense within the pro-life paradigm except as fig leaves to make the policy more palatable to regular folks who would otherwise reject it out of hand. It would, after all, still be “murder” to take that argument to its logical conclusion. But this isn’t about logic, it’s about votes.
That’s something Pat Robertson understands. He knows the whole anti-family planning enterprise rests on putting in enough outs that someone squeamish about a total ban can feel better by giving women rights if and only if a man has forced rights upon them through violence. Savvy right-leaning folks understand this. Dumb ones say… this kind of thing:
Note, at no point in this guy’s warped sense of reality does he consider the girl’s TESTIMONY as possible evidence. That should tell you a lot about the mentality at play.
With its opinion this week in Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt — or, frankly, Shelby County, or Janus, or pretty much anything else — the Supreme Court and its conservative majority made explicit that stare decisis will no longer constrain any outcome. It was a clear sign to anti-abortion forces and Alabama completely missed the point like the JV patzers they are.
Seriously, if an Alabama Republican in state government was capable of stringing together a strategic thought, the state wouldn’t have run Ron “Pervy McPervington” Moore for Senate and lost to a Democrat. It’s like the worst Survivor player suddenly realizing they need to make a move so they vote themselves off the island — BECAUSE IT’S BOLD!
The Court’s signal, for those sharp enough to have caught it, was the opening that Professor Rick Hasen laid out when Kavanaugh joined the Court:
That’s what they were saying. They were saying, “give us your “transvaginal ultrasounds” and your “spousal consents” and your “must carry the aborted fetus pinned to your chest for a year” OR “must adorn a scarlet A for ‘abortion’ for a year” laws.” They were declaring open season on the clumsiest restrictions that they’ve shot down in the past. It was an invitation to gut Roe not only without generating attention but without giving up an issue they’ve teased for decades to string together a coalition of voters willing to throw their own interests in a blender.
Instead, with pretty much no one supporting this bill in its current form, these idiots just foisted a public relations nightmare onto the GOP and its pet Court just in time for the 2020 election cycle. Pat Robertson gets this. That’s why he’s flipping out.
Perhaps the Alabama officials thought they’d been given a greenlight to go for the jugular. Maybe it was a Sun Tzu thing where they embraced the idea that one should always seek quick victory in any contest. If that was their logic, they might have missed some more important lessons from Art of War. Because they’ve now thrown the conservative movement into encircled ground at best and desperate ground at worst. There are few avenues for retreat.
I’m starting to understand why Sherman had such an easy go of it back in the day.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
