Aside from the obvious fact that an abortion ban would allow the Democrats to do nothing and say “vote blue to get abortion rights back” forever as well as the fact that most Democratic voters are upper-middle class white collar workers who wouldn’t really be affected by the ban. My theory is that the elites are realizing that America is demographically screwed. For years, Americans bragged about how China is never going to be a superpower because of its low fertility rate. But with a collapse in immigration rates under Trump and COVID as well as Zoomers/Millennials not having kids because they cannot afford it, it’s looking like America is entering its own demographic crisis. Even Muskrat was talking about this. When you have no one to buy your junk, then the American economy grinds to a halt. My theory is that failsons like Musk will start a massive push to end abortion in order to increase the birth rate so the capitalist system in the west survives just a little longer. and that Democrats will play right along.
I don’t think the ruling class can see that far ahead tbh. The capitalist class as-is has barely any concept of object permanence beyond quarterly profit reports, choosing to rely on the inevitable government bailout when any setback occurs, as frequently happens. Our governments can barely comprehend the concept of the cyclical passage of seasons, as evidenced by their weird gloating about how we’ll magically put up with lack of Russian gas since it’s summer now.
Almost all developed nations (China included) have slow to null birth rates. It’s not just due to the expense of having a child, but also the lack of a necessity of doing so. Literal proletarians in developing nations have nothing to offer but labor-power and that can be achieved by having children which sadly have to enter the workforce at very young ages in order to earn something for the family to subsist, whether it’s working on the family farm or digging cobalt in a cramped mine tunnel for Elon, Cook, Bezos and Ma.
Democrats do not actually care about abortion rights, because, as you said, they are not only insulated from its potential side-effects, but it’s also not an industry that capital deems necessary. Even the for-profit model of the US doesn’t generate nearly as much profit as other medical procedures and has annoying legal issues to deal with as well. There is no benefit for the capitalist class in keeping abortions or really any kind of reproductive medicine. It all really does come down to the necessity for capital. Capital will find a way to keep any awful, harmful, inefficient, obsolescent industry afloat; just look at the corn and gas lobbies and how the US economy is so massively dependent on corn by-products just to keep entire industries and side industries solvent. It just so happens that reproductive medicine doesn’t generate the same rate of profit, so liberals have no real stake in allowing it to exist.
I don’t think the capitalists particularly care.
If the Democrats try to enforce abortion rights, some right-wing militia will shoot up abortion clinics in response, and the republican governor will refuse to stop them. So the net result is a non-state group (some right-wing militia) enforcing its own law (anti-abortion) contrary to the state-sanctioned law, with popular support (in that area). That’s a direct contradiction of the state’s monopoly on legitimate* violence, the thing that makes the state a state.
On the other hand, there’s no left-wing militia or (lmao) liberal militia that’s going to show up, hand out free abortions, and fight when the national guard is sent in to stop them. The organization level of pro-abortion activists consists of usually showing up to vote.
“Usually votes” vs “Will force a crisis of state legitimacy” is not a contest.
*Legitimacy here is the popular perception of legitimacy, not a moral stance.
They have been pushing for a pro-life caucus within the Dems for at least a few years now. They think it’s an issue that hurts them with religious voters.
I don’t understand why they wouldn’t milk the PR from fixing immigration in this case. Bring in all the immigrants they can, slacken up the labor market, drive down wages. But yeah, fundamentally I don’t think they’re interested in solving the abortion problem. Deep down, I think they’re all thinking what Matt Yglesias said out loud in his book, One Billion Americans. China is a rapidly developing nation with 1.4 billion residents. They’ll be doing 4 times as much production, 4 times as much research, 4 times as much culture, and have 4 times as much military strength, and there’s nothing the US can do to stay on top short of assimilating / spawning an additional billion Redditors.
As we know, accepting a niche role in the global system is out of the question for these freaks. They will settle for nothing less than a domineering position, but they are running up against the brick wall of social reproduction. The growth of capital is limited by the growth of the proletariat, and there are exceedingly few people left in the world to proletarianize.
