Jim Hartman: The GOP’s abortion problem

Republicans have a glaring abortion problem.

Like the proverbial dog that caught the car, the GOP spent years campaigning on the promise to appoint Supreme Court justices who would repeal Roe vs. Wade. Yet, when finally successful , they had no idea how to proceed politically.

Democrats have used the reversal of Roe and Republicans’ subsequent anti-abortion initiatives to paint the party as extreme, thereby winning over women and younger voters.

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision last year, overturning Roe, handed abortion policy back to the states where it will remain for the foreseeable future. With a deep national divide on abortion, Congress is unlikely to pass a nationwide law any time soon.

Democrats are successfully attacking conservative candidates on abortion, eclipsing other issues and stoking fearful centrists and suburbanites to turn out and elect them to office.

Most recently, Wisconsin voters April 4 proved the potency of the abortion issue in a race for a seat on the state’s high court.

A left-liberal progressive judge, Janet Protasiewicz, seized the swing seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court by running unapologetically on abortion. With a high turnout , the surprise was the magnitude of her victory, 11 percent , in a state Donald Trump carried in 2016.

Last November, residents in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont voted to support abortion rights when voting directly on the ballot.

Earlier in 2022, even voters in conservative Kansas backed abortion rights when nearly 60% of voters soundly defeated a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would have banned abortions.

In the mid-terms, Democrats hammered GOP Senate and gubernatorial candidates on abortion – and won.

Polling shows very clearly that Americans want abortion to be safe, legal and also be restricted to the early months of pregnancy. In a Pew survey last year, some 61 percent of Americans said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Republicans need to get their abortion position more in line with where voters are or they will lose in 2024. A total ban is a political loser in swing states.

Fearful of getting crosswise with the pro-life movement, Republican legislators in Florida recently enacted a so-called “heartbeat” law banning abortion after six weeks. That’s before many women even know they are pregnant. It was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Several other competitive states have already passed six-week, or even tougher, restrictions. This risks riling millions of swing voters who want a middle position.

Prior to the Dobbs decision, the Florida legislature had passed a bill prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks. That’s a number generally accepted by much of America outside of activists on both extremes.

A 2019 study found 79% of abortions were performed at nine weeks or less of pregnancy, and 93% at 13 weeks or less. Abortion laws in European countries set limits at 15 or 18 weeks.

DeSantis may calculate signing the six-week ban will help in GOP primaries with social conservative voters but he will be repeatedly pressed on this issue as he campaigns for president.

New Hampshire’s popular Gov. Chris Sununu, another likely GOP presidential aspirant, has emphasized his difference with DeSantis on abortion: “We in New Hampshire have a 24-week ban, or 24 weeks of choice… that seems to be where most of America is.”

While polling on this issue is imprecise, slightly more than one-third of Republicans disagree with their party on whether to outlaw abortion.

Trump has been notably silent about abortion since Dobbs, with his advisers telling reporters that he thinks the issue is a loser for Republicans.

Nevada voters are strongly “pro-choice.” Abortion rights up to 24 weeks are codified into state law by a 1990 ballot measure that passed with 63.5% approval.

Abortion gives Democrats a powerful issue in 2024.

E-mail Jim Hartman at lawdocman1@aol.com.