abortion

At last night’s debate, John McCain directly challenged Barack Obama’s position on abortion, articulating a clearly pro-life position without the “Culture of life” euphemisms that we’ve been used to for the last few years.

For a lot of pro-lifer voters, I imagine the moment with McCain was encouraging: high visibility, direct, and unapologetic. Also, utterly unsuccessful. As best as we can tell from polling results after the debate, his comments on abortion alienated and annoyed far more voters than they convinced. The pivotal moment, at least in my mind, was when he replied to Obama’s statements about allowing abortions when a mother’s health was threatened. Continue reading...