Trump justice means punishing women

It’s embarrassing, but I am going to admit it here. I exposed myself in public a couple of weeks ago, not as a flasher, which might have been preferable, but as a fool. I told my audience that I didn’t think Donald Trump could say anything more to expose himself as an insensitive, mean-spirited creep. He found a way.

When asked on MSNBC about abortion, he said, “The answer is, there has to be some form of punishment.” The host asked, “For the woman?” Trump’s answer was simple and clear: “Yes.”

Since whipping at the stake is out of style, and a Scarlet Letter ineffective, we are left with a fine or jail time.

Trump was definitive in those few words. He has clearly told us what he believes, and that may well drive significant numbers of Republicans away in electoral swing states. For many women and men in both parties, “choice” is the compelling issue.

There were a million abortions in our country in 2023. To punish the women, who are not all Democrats, will require new legislation with court cases to follow. People don’t get pregnant so they can have an abortion. If forced underground, it can be deadly. Most people do not think it is a crime and understand it is a tough and complicated process

How would Trump and followers punish the teenage homecoming queen who couldn’t resist the all-star quarterback one night? Flunk her in Home Economics? What if it is her older sister, happily married but barely getting by, financially and emotionally, with the three kids she already has. Put her in jail or in home-wrecking debt?

I don’t think I’m being simply partisan to hope that Trump will find abortion dooming his chance to be president again and burdening Republicans running for lesser office as well. There is evidence that suggests it will. In poll after poll, in state after swing state, the right to a legal abortion has become the defining issue.

Our current abortion turmoil is fathered by politics and a cynical hope for electoral gain. Republicans led by Trump and appointed to the bench by him have destroyed practices that had been working well for half a century.

As we struggle through five more months of politics, our two national conventions, and House and Senate majorities in contention, abortion may be the issue that decides who wins and who loses.

Since the court’s 2022 ruling, most Republican-controlled states have new abortion restrictions in effect, including 14 that ban it at every stage of pregnancy. Most Democratic-led states have laws or executive orders to protect access.

California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, and Vermont have approved abortion rights ballot measures since 2022. In Nevada, 200,000 of just over 3 million residents have asked to have it on the ballot. Punishment may be coming to Trump.

As I finish this, the Republican Governor of Louisiana has made it more difficult and expensive for women to buy contraceptive pills. Avoiding pregnancy is one way to stop abortion. He doesn’t get it.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.