Josh Marshall has a smart column on the right’s attempt to jettison the phrase “pro-life” because it’s toxic.(As a twitter wag quipped, “when ‘pro-life’ is a losing slogan for you, you’ve got bigger problems.”) Marshall points out just how thoroughly the anti-abortion movement has been pushed back on its heels: It now seems clear that the only thing that will be at all memorable about the GOP’s first presidential debate of the 2024 cycle on August 23rd will be that brief speech from Mike Pence in which he staked his campaign on his bible-rooted, evangelical, pro-life record and endorsed a 15-week national ban. I remember finding it stunning in the moment. Kate Riga took it up the next day. The U.S. doesn’t keep perfect data on abortion care in the United States. The most readily available numbers look at the number of abortions on or before the 13th week (91.1%) and 21st week (98.7%). Even this anti-abortion rights group says that 6% of abortions take place on or after week 15, for instance. It is likely that roughly 95% of abortions in the United States happen within the 15-week window that dyed-in-the-wool pro-life politicians now claim to endorse. If the most diehard of pro-life evangelical politicians are now willing to concede 95% of abortions in the U.S., it’s as though they never meant the whole decades long argument in the first place. It’s probably best to see Pence’s statement, all the more telling and striking for how comparatively little attention it attracted, as marking the end of…