abortions and I am incredibly pissed about that. I think she's probably privately in favor, but not willing to expend political capital on the issue. If there were exceptions for the mother's health, she'd sign a 26-week ban if Congress sent her one. Now, really that should be no restriction at all (every pregnancy endangers a mother's health), but she probably doesn't understand that while that protects rich people's abortions, poor people could have trouble finding doctors willing to risk having to defend their decisions in court.

Back in the day, we wanted abortions to be "safe, legal and rare" because we wanted every women to know all about sexuality, have access to birth control, and have control over her body. Thus she would rarely get pregnant unless she wanted to be. It was the mantra of the women's movement. It was not meant to be "rare because there aren't hardly any abortion clinics". That's what the Repubs have made it. As far as birth control, the Dems put it into the ACA, and the Repubs on the Supreme Court took it out for any "religious corporation". If you look at all the stupid Supreme Court decisions since Reagan, those were made by the justices appointed by Repubs.

You're right, Trump was for abortions before he was against them. But I don't think that misogynist will be a champion for women in any way, shape, or form. He's getting tired of running with his money, so he'll cave into the Repub way of doing business in order to attract other people's money, including pandering to the religious by restricting abortion. No matter how many abortions he's paid for himself in the past. That's my prediction, anyway.

The states are restricting abortions because federal law is not strict enough, because somehow Planned Parenthood and their lawyers and whoever else should be fighting these things have been absent while Repub legislatures run roughshod over our rights (many of these laws are probably illegal according to Roe v. Wade, but until they're overturned in court, they're the law). Yes, we need to replace states' Repubs too. We just need to make sure things don't get worse federally. States like NY and CA might protest if there were a nationwide 20-week ban, but what could they do if they're in the minority in Congressional representation? Federal law trumps state law. States' rights people are usually the same as pro-abortion-restrictions people, so they may suddenly be very quiet if they get the abortion restrictions they want - look at how they didn't want states deciding to allow gay marriage.

They actually have made miscarriage illegal, see http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/03/30/3639736/purvi-patel-sentencing/

Ultimately, if Bernie doesn't get the Dem nom, if an independent run looks unfeasible, then we're going to have to make a decision based on imperfect information. Both Repubs and Hill will say anything to get elected. I think any Repub is more likely to be a disaster than any Dem, by at least a tiny amount, and will urge people to hold their nose one more time. But I'm not going to be angry with anyone who votes third party or votes not at all. It's going to be a tough decision for all of us. We won't know what they'll really do unless and until they're in office.