A few years ago, conservatives shrewdly focused on issues like late-term or “partial-birth” abortion—areas where there was a broad consensus, and areas that put the other side in the unenviable position of making a lose-lose choice.

Texas flips the script. In defense of this law, conservatives are attempting to do something patently unfair to women and anyone who “aids or abets” them.

It also shifts the identity of someone who opposes abortion from being a devout modern-day William Wilberforce to being a glorified Dog the Bounty Hunter.

If you are a conservative who is trying to model a compassionate lifestyle in your community and persuade people to embrace a culture of life, your otherwise reasonable and legitimate points are now lumped in with what is a transparently political stunt. This is true even if you’re someone who simply thinks that Roe v. Wade, which invented a new “privacy” right, was wrongly decided. (Anyone actually involved in crafting of the 14th amendment in 1868 would have been surprised to learn they were legalizing abortion.)