Abortion rights did quite well on Tuesday in all of those states where they were put to a statewide referendum, ensuring that Democratic candidates need no longer fear highlighting the issue front and center in red or red-leaning states for the foreseeable future. Voters in Kentucky and North Carolina joined voters in Michigan, California and Vermont in endorsing reproductive freedom, even in the face of Republican-passed state laws that continue to ban the procedure.
As reported by Caroline Kitchener, Kim Bellware, and Rachel Roubein, writing for The Washington Post:
The string of abortion rights successes affirmed a political trend that emerged in August, two months after the fall of Roe, when voters in conservative Kansas rejected an antiabortion amendment similar to the one that was defeated in Kentucky. The results showed how even as GOP lawmakers have seized the moment to enact more restrictions, much of the public sees the issue differently — with about 6 in 10 midterm voters saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to exit polls.
More to the point, the preservation of reproductive rights has now clearly shown itself to be a primary motivating issue for 30-40% of the entire electorate.
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Network exit polls also found that almost 3 in 10 voters nationally said abortion was the most important issue in their vote, and that about 4 in 10 voters nationally said they were “angry” that Roe was overturned.
After a radical conservative majority yanked away the established constitutional right of women and those who become pregnant in its infamous Dobbs decision, many Republicans immediately began the process of scrubbing their forced birth credentials into vague and lukewarm affirmations of their supposed fealty to the cause. Their preferred dodge has been to proclaim their so-called principled opposition to abortion in the cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the pregnant person while continuing to advocate punishing anyone else who might seek to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
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That’s not enough, and it will never be enough. The overwhelming number of unwanted pregnancies that occur in this country are not the product of rape or incest, nor is the decision to terminate a pregnancy a lifesaving imperative in the vast universe of circumstances. Rather, that decision is the product of the pregnant person’s individual needs and their personal determination that an unexpected pregnancy is simply not in their interests. For whatever reason. Period. Their “reasons” are irrelevant quite simply because they are none of anyone else’s business.
And it doesn’t matter whether Republicans’ constituents may disagree. It doesn’t matter whether Republican legislators feel they must vote their constituents’ interests. Because the hard reality is that people aren’t going to stop becoming pregnant in Republican states. Nor are they going to stop seeking out ways to terminate pregnancies they do not want. The horror stories and human tragedies about pregnant people seeking otherwise unobtainable abortions are going to continue to mount in Republican states as long as the procedure is prohibited. The social and public health consequences in those states that criminalize the procedure are going to continue to increase as well. And for that reason there will always be a significant, energized segment of the electorate that prioritizes the right to safe and legal abortion as their main concern.
In short, it’s never going to go away, no matter how fanciful or creative Republicans can be in obfuscating the issue. It will always be on the ballot now, in some form or fashion, in more races and in more states than Republicans can afford to disregard.
That’s what happens when you take away a fundamental right. So Republicans have a choice. They can either repeal these odious laws or they can face the electoral consequences of their failure to do so, in perpetuity.
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