When it comes to the issue of abortion, I've long believed that GOP leaders don't really want to overturn Roe v. Wade. They know that most Americans reluctantly (or not so reluctantly) support some sort of pro-choice position, and so they know that open warfare will break out in the GOP if abortion is either simply banned or restricted to an extent that many find objectionable.
But, of course, the top people in the GOP won't honestly admit to their most committed followers that they don't really want to do away with Roe v. Wade (or, for that matter, to place draconian legal limitations on the procedure). Michael Kinsley once usefully called this subterfuge the darker conspiracy theory.
Well, recent events are beginning to vindicate this view of the GOP. You've probably been reading about the doings in South Dakota, which just signed into law rather severe restrictions on abortion.
Here are the first two paragraphs of an article by Howard Fineman and Evan Thomas of Newsweek:
When South Dakota approved a law sharply restricting abortion last week, many pro-life Republicans around the country sounded a loud hallelujah. But at least one very senior Republican did not seem at all eager to join in the chorus. As Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, flew to Memphis to attend the first gathering of potential GOP presidential candidates for 2008, a NEWSWEEK reporter asked him if he had anything to say about the South Dakota law. "No," he said. Did he plan to make a statement on that topic at the Republican gathering in Memphis? "No" was the answer. Would he ever be willing to comment on the topic, other than to say that it's up to the states to make their own choices on abortion? Again, the answer was "no." The look on his face was more expressive. It appeared to ask, "Are you kidding?"Why such reticence to embrace glad tidings? After all, the abortion issue has been good to the Republican Party. It has energized Roman Catholic and evangelical grass-roots activists and allowed the GOP to paint pro-choice Democrats as cultural extremists, out of step with Main Street and the heartland. But a recent flurry of activity on abortion is making Republican politicians nervous. With states moving to restrict abortion and the Supreme Court drawing closer to the day when it might actually reverse Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision guaranteeing a woman's right to an abortion, GOP leaders see big political risks.
The rest of the article is just as interesting, so I recommend reading the whole thing. The point, though, is that another fault line within the GOP is beginning to be a real worry for the party. And this one can't be papered over for much longer.
