On abortion, Harris fans the flames for electoral gain, fights calming compromise

Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate made the political divide over abortion abundantly clear.

For Republican JD Vance, it’s an issue on which compromise is possible; for Democrat Tim Walz — like his running mate Kamala Harris — accepting any state and r💜egional differences will violate women’s rights.

Walz’s view is in keeping with Harris’ pledge to jettison the Senate filibuster in order to enact a nat൩ional right to abortion — even as Americans themselves have at long last been moving toward compromise, based on the safety valve pཧrovided by federalism. 

As Democrats like to say about Donald Trump and border control, it’s 💫Harris and Walz🥂 who “want the issue,” not a compromise.

If they were truly committed to reducing the divis♔iveness of which they accuse Trump, they’d look instead to an exampleꦦ set by Democratic icon Franklin Roosevelt on the issue that was, in its day, as emotional and wrenching as abortion: Prohibition.

It was Roosevelt who resওolved it — by returning the 🐷question to the states.

National alcohol policy may seem to have little in common with abortion, but in the late 19th and early 20th century Prohibition was the overriding domestic political issue. 

Like abortion, it pitted the religious versus the secular, Catholics versus P💫rotestants, an🐷d urban “wet states” like New York versus rural “dry” ones such as Indiana.

Banning alcohol divided the country in ways comparable to abortion — even to th𓃲e point 🐟of inspiring violence. 

Carrie Nation, the most famous temperance crusader, boasted about her methods:  “I ran behind the bar, smashed the mirror and all the bottles u🌃nder it . . . opened the door and cut the rubber tubes  . . . the beer flew in every direction.” 

The “Anti-Saloon League” asserted that “ཧa new nation will be born” the moment Prohibition took effect. At the same time, the anti-Prohibition New York World lamented that wওith its enactment, “the Government of the United States as established by the Constitution . . . will cease to exist.”

Before Prohibition, alcohol regulation was a state matter — much like abortion was pre-Roe, when states like New York and California allowed it aཧnd others did not.

But just as Roe v. Wade set a single policy of legalized abortion for the entire nation, the 18th Amendment did the same as it banned alcohol sales a♛cross the country.

🅺The result of that Roe-like one-size-fits-all policy was not to settle the issue, but to enflame it. 

Roosevelt put an end to that culture war  in 𒈔his 1932 campaign to repeal Prohibition. 

But here’s what he didn’t do: Propose a federal law to make the entire country “wet,” ignori𒆙ng regional and ꦡcultural differences.

Instead, he let the states decide — a🍬nd, l༒ike ice melting in bourbon, temperance soon faded as a force in national politics.

In 1904, the Prohibition Party candidate for president received n🔯early 260,000 votesཧ, 2% of the total; after repeal, it received a grand total of 52,000. The issue disappeared.

Democrats, their “unity” rheto♈ric aside, don’t want t🌳o see that happen with abortion.

Referendum votes at the state level are finding middle ground — as voters in such red states as Ohio and Kansas have voted against outright bans. At the💞 same time, states like Alabama continue severe restrictions. In November,♌ voters in Arizona and Florida will have their own say on it.

The reliable from July showed only 8% percent of voters ranked abortion as their most important issue, trailing inflation🎃, immigration, health car꧅e and jobs and the economy.

Harris has made clear that she aims to fan the flames — both by endorsing one expansive abortion policy for the whole country, and by perpetuating the canard that Trump will seek a national ban.

Indeed, abortion is the only issue being raised by former Rep. Mondaire Jones in his Hudson Valley race against moderate Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, despite Lawler’s opposition to an abortion🍌 ban. 

New Jersey Democrat Sue Altman is making a similar p♋lay against incumbent Republican Rep. Tom Kea๊n Jr.

Just as Democrats accuse Trump of scuttling border legislation to kee🔜p the immigration issue alive during the campaign, so Harris is doing with abortion: resisting the kind of stat𝔍e-by-state compromises that settled Prohibition.  

Even today, about 10% of Americans live in a dry county. But ther🌳e’s 🍎zero debate about that local choice.

In a post-Roe Americ💛a, we may well be se🍰eing a similar trajectory of federalist compromise on abortion.

Democrats are hoping otherwise. Novemberღ will tell u🦄s if they’re right to do so.

Howard Husock is an American Enterprise Institute senior fellow and the author of “The Poor Side of Town — And Why We Need It.”