So why do you support abortion in the case of rape and incest?
Politics. I support candidates who make an exception for rape and incest for the same reason I support candidates who are in favor of Social Security. To call for what I'd like, the immediate elimination of all entitlements, is political suicide. Just like calling for a complete ban on abortion would be. So I compromise.
MaxFlint said it succinctly well. It really does come to that word… compromise. Politics isn’t about what the politician personally wants in their own ideal universe—perhaps this is what Conservatives have been forgetting, that you kinda have to be willing to put yourself 2nd and be okay with that. The real objective is in crafting solutions representative of what constituents at large want… of course, there are many different ways of achieving the same goal, hence why elections really matter. And it’s in this respect that Conservatives can create solutions delivering results people want, in a way that’s methodologically compatible with their own principles and ultimately conducive towards a more optimal society.
I mean look, if it were up to me according to my own ideal universe, I’d have centralized government wholly disbanded such that essential functions of governance (police, courts, law, defense, etc.) were were fully privatized and provided to society via market-anarchy. But it’s not up to me, and that kind of arrangement likely isn’t going to happen in my lifetime or anywhere near it. It’s not realistic for me to pine for that at the exclusion of present-day realities. So, I instead take stock of the current sociopolitical situation as it is, with an eye towards what people want, and work within that according to my own philosophical principles of limited government that I believe are conducive to yielding superior solutions.