Republicans' enthusiasm for forced birth laws may be the best thing to ever happen to the pro-choice movement. The Hill reported last week that “59% of Americans surveyed say abortion should be legal, a new high, according to a new Fox News poll.” “Support for abortion rights has increased by double digits since early 2022, just before the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision.” “It created a cascading effect and sparked a new wave of abortion rights activism.”
The effects of criminalizing abortion are profound. The share of Americans who think abortion should always be legal increased from 27% in April 2022 to 35%. Moreover, while a record number now consider this an important issue (41%), voters are more concerned about President Biden (53%) than his almost certain rival in 2024, Donald Trump ( (41%) believe they will do a better job on the abortion issue.
Desperate to avoid a backlash against abortion bans, Republicans came up with the idea of six- or 15-week limits. It doesn't solve their political problems. “When asked if they supported a six-week abortion ban, only 38 percent said yes, and 58 percent said they opposed it,” the poll found. “As for a 15-week ban, 43% said they supported the idea, while 54% opposed it, a complete reversal from last year's Fox News poll.”
Abortion policy will be an issue in many states in November's elections, which could affect the race. Maryland is already a deeply blue pro-choice state, but Republican Senate candidate and former Gov. Larry Hogan is trying to sidestep the issue after a November vote enshrined the right to abortion into the state constitution. is facing difficulties. If he deviates from the MAGA party line, there will be a Republican backlash. (As governor, he vetoed a bill expanding access to abortion.)
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A referendum may also be held in Arizona. The measure would expand access to abortion beyond the current 15-week limit. This has implications not only for the presidential race in battleground states, but also for the U.S. Senate race, where extreme MAGA Republican Kali Lake faces Democratic U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego.
Meanwhile, in Florida, where Sen. Rick Scott (R) is up for re-election and there is eternal hope among Democrats that he will win at the presidential level, an amendment to limit government intervention in abortion A proposal has been proposed, and the Democratic Party could receive a push that includes the following: No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the health of the patient in accordance with the judgment of the patient's health care provider. ”
The proposal gathered enough signatures to qualify for a ballot this fall, but Republicans challenged the bill in court. This mirrors the failure of Republicans last year in Ohio to change the state's constitutional amendment rules to block a referendum on expanding abortion rights. On Tuesday, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the state's six-week ban could go into effect, but also that pro-choice measures could appear on ballots. It will be the stage for a high-stakes abortion fight.
And in Montana, where Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is in a tough re-election battle, “a proposed ballot initiative would be a challenge to the state's constitution, which states that “the right to make decisions about one's own pregnancy, including the right to abortion,'' “The government is prohibited from denying or imposing a burden on the right to abortion before the fetus is viable,” according to ABC News. The story was reported as being about an organization that secures rights.
These measures could boost Democratic turnout and help the party's candidates gain or lose votes. Moreover, they put abortion first in the minds of their voters. The string of pro-choice policy victories since Dobbs and the subsequent washout of the red wave in the 2022 midterm elections suggest that abortion has changed the electoral landscape.
“People are talking about abortion as a way to mobilize high-ranking professionals, and that's exactly part of what you're seeing,” political scientist D. Stephen Vos told Vox. … It's a backlash against the culture war conservatism of the Republican Party.” Voss added, “If you look at just a very limited number of suburban counties, we're seeing that this trend among wealthy professionals is impacting much more than just what we call the suburbs.'' will be overlooked,” he added.
Similarly, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, one of the few analysts to throw cold water on predictions of a 2022 red wave, has repeatedly warned that “Dobbs changed everything.” In an MSNBC interview in September, Rosenberg explained that after Dobbs, “Democrats have done a lot better” in more than 20 special elections.
A cottage industry (the same one Dobbs predicted would not be a factor) argued that the impact of the abortion issue would diminish. But if attention was diverted, the recent Supreme Court case banning the abortion drug mifepristone certainly woke up many women. The Supreme Court justices signaled during oral argument that they were prepared to dismiss the case for “just cause.” However, this does not mean that those concerned about abortion rights will not be able to see that Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Justice Clarence Thomas are the latest in right-wing anti-abortion legislation to implement a nationwide abortion ban in 1873. It reminded me that it appears that they are actively trying to adopt the Comstock Act in 2017.
“Conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation are already calling on President Trump to issue an executive order banning medication abortions on day one,” Slate’s Daria Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern wrote last week. Ta. “Republican lawyers are preparing to use the Comstock Act to ban all abortions, not just pills.” To the extent that the government can push ahead with this, there is a possibility that it will seek to apply this “zombie relic'' law broadly. Democrats are sure to highlight that shocking outlook ahead of November's election.
That means Republicans will likely continue to convince voters that they won't let public opinion get in the way of their extreme bid to ban abortion in every state. Democrats would do well to focus on abortion, just as they did in 2022. During this election cycle, watch as more Democrats vow to repeal the Comstock Act, enshrine abortion rights in federal law, and aggressively use the Justice Department to defend a woman's right to choose. please. In doing so, they can draw a sharp contrast to the cruel and dangerous policies of the Republican Party.
