Opinion | There is no abortion debate in this presidential race

Nowhere in the country is the issue of women’s reproductive rights more important than in Alabama. 

Doesn’t matter which side of the debate you land on. Doesn’t matter your thoughts on the very serious and complicated circumstances entangled within that issue. 

The fact is, in Alabama, we know for certain that the results of the upcoming presidential election, and the also-important races for the House and Senate, will decide one of two pathways for women within our state borders: Either Alabama women will be subjected to the most draconian, regressive, invasive restrictions imaginable, or they will enjoy some level of freedom ensured by federal law. 

Oh, I am aware that the framing of that choice will send the conservatives into a conniption, but the truth hurts. And make no mistake about it, that option is the truth. 

When you have consciously decided to force 12-year-old rape victims to carry a resulting pregnancy to term, you don’t get to cry foul when your laws are referred to as draconian, barbaric or 1960s-regressive. 

Alabama’s conservative lawmakers have imposed one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country in the wake of Roe v. Wade falling, and those same lawmakers have flatly refused to alter that law to grant exceptions in the cases of rape or incest. 

Alabama’s attorney general has stated repeatedly that he wished to pursue criminal charges against women who sought abortion medication, and he threatened nonprofit organizations that sought to help women travel to other states for abortions. 

And just to make sure we’re a little dose of extra awful, we went ahead and declared IVF to be murder too. Because, why wouldn’t we take the dreams of women who so badly want to become moms that they’ve dished out tens of thousands of dollars and undergone dozens of invasive procedures and step on those dreams just because … we’re too dumb to work ourselves out of the box we constructed from whole cloth. 

(It amazes me still today that no one on the right is willing to stand up and say that this whole “life begins at conception” idiocy was nothing more than a political bumper sticker slogan meant to hijack what should have been a science-based discussion over proper abortion laws. Instead, they’re going to pretend that a concept that isn’t grounded in anything – not law, religion, medicine or anything else  – is somehow the guiding principle that must be followed, and deny millions of women an opportunity to have babies. All because they’re too egotistical to admit the conception thing was just a dumb talking point).

So, make no mistake about it, the women of Alabama have a vested interest in the reproductive rights policies of Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump. 

Harris has been clear: She will do everything within her power to codify abortion rights and women’s medical rights, including IVF, into federal law. She will sign any bill brought to her by Congress, and she will do anything legally allowable through executive orders to protect and better serve women. 

Put in real-life terms: She wants an America where doctors aren’t denying necessary medical treatment for a suffering pregnant woman because ridiculous state laws place more importance on the fetus than the living human woman on the table. 

Trump, in the meantime, has been … about as clear as mud. 

At one point in his life, he was fairly clear that he was “very pro-choice.” But then, somewhere between the porn star sex and sexual abuse – and probably around the time he decided to run a con on the rubes in the GOP – he became pro-life. 

And he then appointed Supreme Court justices on the short list of extreme rightwing conservative groups, with one primary goal of overturning Roe. (It’s so fun to think about how that came about because of the alleged careless handling of classified information. Thank God we got someone so responsible with such documents instead).

After the fall of Roe, Trump was “very proud” of his contribution. And up until, let’s see here, five days ago, he had “no regrets” over that landmark Dobbs decision and the havoc it has wreaked upon women from coast to coast. But havoc that has been even more devastating in deep-red states, like Alabama, where countless stories of unimaginable suffering and the basic denial of rights have been easy to find. 

But on Sunday, Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, chose to couch the campaign’s position a bit differently. He said Trump would veto any national abortion ban. 

This relatively benign – and altogether unbelievable – assertion from Vance – that Trump would stick to this idiotic state-by-state solution – sent shockwaves through the conservative community, which is apparently hellbent on putting those women back in their 1800s places. 

Look, let’s clear this up once and for all: The Trump campaign’s position on this, like the GOP’s, is whatever in the hell a lot of conservatives will vote for. 

That’s been the problem all along. Abortion was never a serious policy issue for Republicans, because they never dreamed of an America in which they could have any meaningful say in that policy. Roe was the settled law of the land, up until six religious zealots shirked off established precedent. 

So, now, they’re just winging it and hoping someone, somewhere comes up with something to mask the fact that they’ve got nothing past screaming “PRO LIFE” and calling Democrats “baby killers.” And it’s unlikely that the guy who suggested you inject bleach to kill off a virus is going to bridge the divide. 

For women all over the country, and especially in states like Alabama, that doesn’t seem like much of a choice.