Of Course Voters Care About Abortion
The upcoming midterms are already a referendum on bodily autonomy.
It was exactly a year ago, during the sleepiest summer week, that a law Texas Republicans had passed in May, Senate Bill 8 (SB 8), went into effect—essentially banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and becoming the country’s most radical piece of active anti-abortion legislation. I remember because I was apoplectic. I went to bed last August 31 knowing that a constitutional right we’d had for almost a half-century was likely doomed; smart people told me I was being hysterical.
The year that’s followed has seen a tsunami of victories for the anti-abortion movement, punctuated by the Supreme Court’s decision on the Dobbs case, which overturned Roe in late June. From there, state Republicans sprang into action. Twelve states have now almost completely banned abortion, and many more state-level bans are in the works. For someone my age, who grew up in a world where bodily autonomy was taken for granted as a protected right, the post-Roe reality has felt like a dystopian horror movie.
And yet, since the leak of the Dobbs draft, numerous pundits have insisted that the decision doesn’t matter to American voters. In May, Sarah Isgur, who has worked as a spokesperson in the Department of Justice, wrote in Politico that, politically, abortion had proved to be “the dog that didn’t bite.” In June, USA Today wrote, “Democratic strategists who hope the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade will transform the midterms’ political landscape in their favor may be in for a disappointment.” And in July, National Review editor Rich Lowry argued in Politico that, “most people aren’t passionate about abortion one way or another.”
They were all wrong.
What many of us failed to anticipate was the extent of Dobbs’ reach. The reversal of Roe has meant that doctors practicing in states with strict anti-abortion laws now have to weigh the risk of treating miscarriage patients against the threat of disastrous legal blowback. Patients have reported significant obstacles to obtaining the medicines they need to treat conditions like lupus and some types of arthritis because those medications are considered abortifacients.
And then there are the rape and incest horror stories. In early July, the case of a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio who had to cross state lines to get a (potentially) lifesaving abortion caused a firestorm. Both The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post published skeptical commentaries on the story; the Journal editorial headline read “An Abortion Story Too Good to Confirm.” Unfortunately for both papers—and the people who have actually had to live through this gruesome saga—the day after the Journal article ran, a man was charged with raping an Ohio 10-year-old who had traveled for an abortion; the Times later revealed that the doctor who performed the abortion had reported it to the state.
Therein lies the key problem for the anti-abortion crew: When you’re talking about a 10-year-old rape victim having to go out of state to get an abortion, your “side” is losing. And when you’re calling that little girl and her doctor liars, you’re really losing.
It’s becoming clear that abortion is a losing issue for some Republicans too. In early August, voters in the very red state of Kansas rejected an amendment to ban abortion by a margin of more than 150,000 votes (a partial recount changed the results by fewer than 100 votes). Then came last week’s special election in New York’s Nineteenth Congressional District, widely seen as a significant bellwether ahead of November’s midterms; Democrat Pat Ryan won on a campaign that centered his commitment to fighting for abortion rights.
Now, with just over two months to the midterms, Republicans are starting to appear worried that their anti-abortion messaging will hurt them. On his campaign website, Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters replaced the line “I am 100% pro-life” with “Democrats lie about my views on abortion.” Michigan Republican congressional candidate Tom Barrett edited his website to refocus language about his involvement with the anti-abortion movement toward his opponent’s views on abortion. Even Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate and “Stop the Steal” celebrity Doug Mastriano seems to be limiting his anti-abortion talk.
As of now, it seems all but guaranteed that overturning Roe will have long-term electoral consequences for Republicans. It’s also becoming more apparent that, despite pundit-class assurances that women don’t care about having their rights taken away, and Republicans’ efforts to disappear the evidence of their anti-abortion platforms, neither group gets to decide what voters care about, nor what they do at the polls. The Roe fight is yet another instance of women voters being undermined, undercounted, and underappreciated. But hopefully, this midterm, female voters will strike back.