Since the rightful fall of Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision, pro-lifers have been on something of a losing streak. Yes, governors who've signed anti-abortion legislation have gone on to win strong re-election victories -- but pro-abortion activists have worked to place referenda on statewide ballots, and they've been winning those battles, including in traditionally red states. The way they've managed to do so is by heavily outspending the opposing side in pushing advertising that frames these up-or-down ballot measures as urgent opportunities to prevent total abortion bans. Unfortunately, the actual fine-print verbiage of what they've presented has been quite radical, effectively wiping out and boxing out any meaningful pro-life protections, including popular ones. But that's not how they've been marketed to voters.
The misleading messaging has been persuasive and the funding behind these pushes has overwhelmed the under-resourced and ultimately unpersuasive counter-argument. After Ohio passed its extreme version of this plebiscite last November, Sen. JD Vance analyzed the outcome. The whole mini essay is worth a read, but I've emphasized a few particular points:
For pro lifers, last night was a gut punch. No sugar coating it. Giving up on the unborn is not an option. It's politically dumb and morally repugnant. Instead, we need to understand why we lost this battle so we can win the war. I was very involved in the "no" campaign for issue 1, so let me share a few insights. First, we got creamed among voters who disliked both Issue 1 and also Ohio's current law (heartbeat bill). We saw this consistently in polling and in conversations. "I don't like Issue 1, but I'd rather have that extreme than the other extreme." This is a political fact, not my opinion. Second, we have to recognize how much voters mistrust us (meaning elected Republicans) on this issue. Having an unplanned pregnancy is scary. Best case, you're looking at social scorn and thousands of dollars of unexpected medical bills. We need people to see us as the pro-life party, not just the anti-abortion party.
Third, as Donald Trump has said, "you've got to have the exceptions." I am as pro life as anyone, and I want to save as many babies as possible. This is not about moral legitimacy but political reality. I've seen dozens of good polls on the abortion question in the last few months, many of them done in Ohio. Give people a choice between abortion restrictions very early in pregnancy with exceptions, or the pro choice position, and the pro life view has a fighting chance. Give people a heartbeat bill with no exceptions and it loses 65-35. (The reason we didn't lose 65-35 last night is that some people who hate "no exceptions" restrictions will still refuse to vote for things like Issue 1). Fourth, we've spent so much time winning a legal argument on abortion that we've fallen behind on the moral argument. I talked to so many decent people who voted yes on Issue 1, and their reasons varied. Some described themselves as "pro life" but hated the lack of a rape exception in Ohio law. Some were worried that Ohio law would prevent them from addressing an ectopic pregnancy, or a late term miscarriage. Some didn't understand the "viability" standard in Issue 1, and thought that of course you should be able to abort a "non-viable" pregnancy as that would be a danger to the mother.
You can criticize the propaganda effort on the other side for lying to people about these issues or confusing the populace, but it suggests we have to do a much better job of persuasion. And I'm not just talking about 30 second TV commercials--I'm talking about sustained, years long efforts to show the heart of the pro life movement. Fifth, money. We got outspent big time on Issue 1, and across the country. Republicans are almost always outspent by Democrats. Relatedly, Democrats are better at turning out in off year elections. The national party should be focused on two, and only two issues: how to juice turnout in off year elections and how to close the finance gap with Democrats. A lot of people put their heart and soul into this campaign. The local right to life organizations in Ohio, The Center for Christian Virtue, SBA, Governor Dewine, and so many others. I tip my hat to them. A lot of people are celebrating right now, and I don't care about that. I do care about the fact that because we lost, many innocent children will never have a chance to live their dreams. There is something sociopathic about a political movement that tells young women (and men) that it is liberating to murder their own children. So let's keep fighting for our country's children, and let's find a way to win.
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That first insight is very important. We've been tracking polls for years showing that Americans broadly support quite a few abortion limitations and restrictions. They oppose the inhumane and extreme position of national Democrats: Abortion on demand, for any reason, through all nine months of pregnancy, funded by taxpayers. Even President Biden recently seemed to intuit that voters don't want that, even though it's his official position. But if voters are given the choice between something that's sold to them as a moderate pro-choice policy and something that they see as an overly-prohibitive anti-abortion policy, they'll choose the former, pretty decisively. Pro-lifers need to understand that reality and adjust to it -- or keep losing. Such losses aren't just demoralizing political setbacks; they have real impacts on innocent lives, the preservation of which is the whole purpose of the pro-life movement. A national poll out this week once again underscores that Americans haven't suddenly turned into hardcore pro-late-term-abortion zealots. If you put a European-style consensus policy in front of them, like this one, they're likely to support it. By a double-digit margin, voters favor a ban on most abortions after four months:
YouGov Poll: Do you Support or Oppose a national ban on abortions after 16 weeks of pregnancy?
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) February 21, 2024
Support 48%
Oppose 36%
—
Male: 49-33
Female: 47-39
18-29 y/o: 52-33
White: 49-37
Black: 46-28
Hispanic: 47-34
Dem: 35-50
GOP: 67-23
Indie: 43-33
—
538: #4 | 2/18-20 | N=1,560 pic.twitter.com/ClL5psk8tc
Pluralities or majorities of men, women, young people, white voters, black voters, Hispanic voters, Republicans and independents support this idea. I'd guess that if some popular exceptions were added into the question wording, and if it were framed as four months (versus 16 weeks), the numbers would be higher. Perhaps substantially so. Democrats rarely want to answer if there are any limits they'd support on abortion because their activist and donor class demands a degree of barbaric radicalism that is anathema to most people. So they hide behind slogans and distortions of mainstream pro-life views in order to deflect the conversation into a more favorable realm for them. They are aided in this, of course, by a 'news' media that is exceptionally biased and extreme on the issue. Pro-lifers can complain about this, and fight amongst themselves over purity tests, or they can figure out which of their views are most palatable to their fellow citizens and lead with those. Lives are literally at stake. I'll leave you with a humble suggestion that regardless of how you feel about this substantively, this is not the way to win the hearts-and-minds battle anywhere, even in a place like Alabama:
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children and that a person can be held liable for destroying them.
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 20, 2024
Reproductive rights advocates say the case could have implications for fertility treatments such as IVF. pic.twitter.com/PqoJqJhROb
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