Some liberals seemed genuinely surprised by the results of the Kansas abortion referendum. A reliably republican state, a huge pro-choice victory. Who could have predicted this?
Others suggested that only the anti-abortion side should be shocked. “The anti-abortion movement has long claimed that voters would reward Republicans for reversing Roe. [vs. Wade]”, wrote Mark Joseph Stern of Slate magazine. “Now they are discovering that this conviction has always been illusory.”
It’s true that activists often tend toward unrealistic optimism, but no one in favor of overthrowing the Roe case should be particularly surprised by the Kansas outcome. By the margin, perhaps. But a Republican state voting to uphold abortion rights underscores what has always been apparent: with Roe gone, the so-called “pro-life” movement must now adapt to the democratic contest it sought.
Right now, most Americans are in favor of abortion restrictions that were scrapped under the Roe decision, but just over a third of the country takes the position that the procedure should be largely illegal, a number that dwindles if you remove multiple exceptions.
That means the millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump are in favor of abortion rights in the first three months of pregnancy — some of them traditional, old-fashioned Republicans, other secular, working-class voters or non-active conservatives who don’t like elite progressivism. but they also find religious conservatism alienating.
In many red (republican) as well as purple (mixed) states, these constituencies maintain the balance of power. Even with exceptions, a state probably needs to be very republican or very religious for a first-trimester abortion ban to pass popularly, which basically means the “deep south” and “mountain west” (especially Mormon).
That was clear before Roe’s downfall — that outright bans would be the exceptions, and the dispute in many states would be over how far restrictions can go.
The Kansas result confirms this assumption. The state already has a ban on advanced pregnancy, and the extensive measure put to the vote did not specify an alternative; it only promised the legislature general power to write new abortion laws. Would the result have been different if the referendum had proposed restrictions of around 12 weeks? I suspect so. Can the anti-abortion movement be content with this kind of goal? Well, that’s the question — with different states providing different answers.
In purplish Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp signed a law in 2019, which now takes effect, banning abortion after about six weeks, with several exceptions; Looks like he’s on his way to re-election. In reddish Florida, popular Governor Ron DeSantis is advocating a 15-week ban for now.
On the other hand, Republican gubernatorial nominees in Pennsylvania and Michigan have a history of adopting few exception positions that seem inappropriate to their states.
I suspect liberals are kidding themselves if they imagine that abortion will become a mainstream issue in an environment as economically and geopolitically charged as the current one. But on the margins there are clear opportunities: If Republicans run a “no exceptions” stance in moderately conservative states or support a ban on abortion in the first three months of pregnancy in undecided states, they will lose some elections they could win.
But then again, serious pro-lifers have always known that if you bring abortion back into the democratic process, you have to deal with public opinion as it really is. And the way you change public opinion is by proving that the incremental version of your ideas is viable, so that voters trust you more and more.
This requires addressing immediate anxieties head-on. It is not enough, for example, that opponents of the issue react to stories about delays in care for spontaneous abortions or ectopic pregnancies, pointing out that state laws are being misinterpreted. All public servants in these states must be mobilized so that hospitals fear malpractice lawsuits more than hypothetical abortion lawsuits.
And it requires long-term creativity so that each new protection for the unborn is combined with assurances that mothers and children will have better support than they do today.
When I make this last point, I get a credible liberal retort to the effect that Republicans could already have done more for families and didn’t, so why would that change?
But this is the point of exerting de facto democratic pressure. Religious conservatives steered Republicans away from libertarian economics in the past — “compassionate conservatism” grew out of evangelicals and Catholics — but while abortion was essentially a legal battle the link to family politics was indirect.
Now that Republicans need to legislate abortion, however, there are incentives to make the link explicit — especially in states where socially conservative Democrats, especially Hispanic voters, can join an anti-abortion coalition.
That doesn’t mean it will happen, just that the incentives of democratic politics are how it would happen. Roe’s demise opens the door to an incrementalist and creative pro-life movement; does not guarantee that such a movement will arise. But the results in Kansas show what will happen if it doesn’t.
