Republicans have spent the past months proving a point I've been trying to make: Repealing Roe was never about federalism and state's rights. It has always been, and always will be, about taking away women's bodily autonomy.
I am not surprised that it didn't take long for anti-abortion extremists to show their true colors and push for even more restrictions on abortion rights, as well as some outrageous proposals for "solutions" to an inevitable wave of unwanted pregnancies because of Roe being overturned.
Sen. Lindsey Graham is one of the more prominent Republicans who seems to have missed the "it's about federalism, we're pro-states" nonsense the GOP was pushing when they got rid of the constitutional right to an abortion this summer. As an unmarried, childless male, the South Carolina senator decided to push for a federal 15-week abortion ban and further erode the rights of women in states where they still have agency over their bodies, states like Colorado (where a woman's fundamental right to abortion was reaffirmed statutorily post-Dobbs), and California (where access to abortion was expanded after Roe fell).
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In 2022, women's bodies are not where Republicans want to wage political war.
The Democrats rallying on abortion
Because it's a midterm, predictions would normally be that the president’s party is almost guaranteed to lose seats. President Obama had historic midterm losses in 2010, while President Trump lost the House to Democrats in the 2018 midterms. The trend runs back to before World War II.
But instead of a referendum on the economy, it seems like access to reproductive healthcare is top of mind since the Dobbs decision, with women turning out in unprecedented numbers to register to vote. For instance, in Pennsylvania 62% of new female voters registered as Democrats (15% registered as Republican). In Kansas, 70% of newly registered women voters signed up as Democrats. In Wisconsin, women have out-registered men by almost 10%, with Democrats making up 52.36% of all of those newly registered voters (16.59% of new voters registered as Republicans.) In Michigan, women are out-registering men by 8.1 percentage points as new voters and Democrats are out-registering Republicans by 18 percentage points. Louisiana, Florida and Texas are seeing similar phenomena.
So, no on states' rights? Lindsey Graham mansplains his federal abortion ban: 'I picked 15 weeks.' Got it, ladies?
And voter registration isn't the only good thing happening for Democrats worried about abortion rights receding even more. In Ohio, a judge just temporarily blocked that state's six-week abortion ban, saying it violated "Ohio’s Equal Protection and Benefit Clause," and restored the previous limit of 20 weeks while the case proceeds.
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In Michigan, a state judge recently ruled that a 91-year-old law that banned abortion violated the state constitution. In Kansas, voters upheld the right to abortion after state legislators proposed an amendment to the state constitution that would have repealed the right to an abortion in the deeply red state, even though that right was affirmed in a state Supreme Court ruling in 2019. And in New York Democrat Pat Ryan, who made abortion rights a cornerstone of his campaign, recently beat out a Republican candidate in a special election for control of the state's 19th congressional district.
No tangible action by Republicans to help women
So what are the humanitarian solutions Republicans have come up with to help women and girls facing unwanted pregnancies: expecting raped children to give birth, building more baby drop boxes for unwanted newborns?
It's as insulting as it is pathetic and sad. Everyone knows that regular polling over the years has consistently shown that Americans support abortion care. Yasmin Radjy, Executive Director of the progressive political group Swing Left, told me that "In terms of where voters are, Republicans and Independents agree with Democrats that women should have the right to safe and legal abortion. 77% of Americans agree on that point."
Unsurprisingly, after Roe was overturned and the unthinkable actually happened, support for abortion rights actually increased.
So it's mind-boggling that Republican lawmakers pushed through with these unpopular policies, against the wishes of voters. The need to access abortion care cuts across party lines and abortion bans were never going to be good politics. And they did all this without having a set plan to support the people they decided to force into parenthood.
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But not everyone in the GOP is putting their head in the sand. In a bid to save their November campaigns other Republicans are scrambling to scrub their websites of hardline anti-abortion rhetoric because, well, it was a bad idea in the first place.
But it's too late. Americans know who's to blame for this human rights monstrosity and they're going to take them to task come November.
Extreme factions of the GOP have misread Americans. Come November, it's all about abortion rights.
Carli Pierson, a New York licensed attorney, is an opinion writer with USA TODAY, and a member of the USA TODAY Editorial Board. Follow her on Twitter: @CarliPiersonEsq.
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Abortion bans are firing up Democrats in lead up to November elections
I was a Kansas doctor for 20 years. Abortion can be complex, but it’s always personal
Gemunu Amarasinghe/Associated Press file photo
Twenty years as a family doctor in Johnson County gave me a close-up view of the abortion discussion as it grew more and more intense.
I learned firsthand that an unexpected pregnancy is a shock. Even worse is unexpected bad news during a much-wanted pregnancy.
One of my patients faced both challenges. As soon as she knew that she was pregnant, she decided to place her child for adoption. Two weeks before her due date, she realized that the baby wasn’t moving. Her baby’s heart had suddenly stopped beating. Her baby had died.
She chose to induce labor that evening, delivering a perfect-looking baby boy who would never know life. Technically, I had performed an abortion.
Later that year, another young woman gave birth to a healthy baby boy she planned to keep. Her grandmother, her only support, asked me privately why the system had made it so hard for the new mom to have the abortion she really wanted. I had no answer.
That new mom was 11 years old. She wasn’t mature enough to choose adoption or abortion. But she was suddenly a mother.
The Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling in June suddenly limited women’s options.
A record number of Kansans went to the polls six weeks later to preserve reproductive freedom. They voted overwhelmingly to maintain choice for the people of Kansas. Voters in the 3rd District spoke out by a 2-1 margin in favor of choice.
National support for access to abortion reached an all-time high across demographic lines in July of this year according to a Pew Research Poll.
Since the Dobbs decision, Republican political candidates have raced to distance themselves from their earlier opposition to abortion access. Even candidates who had called for total abortion bans without exception have scrubbed those statements from their campaign literature. They now promise to oppose any nationwide ban, even if their records suggest otherwise.
At the same time, Republicans in Congress have introduced a federal bill to restrict abortion access in all states. They would impose even more restrictions than the current Kansas law we voted to preserve in August. Their extreme anti-choice supporters say they are working to ban abortions nationally without exception. So, now we must decide whether we want elected officials who will stand firm for reproductive rights on the national level.
Some anti-choice candidates are now scrambling to decide whether federal politicians or state politicians should make the decision. They all believe that women shouldn’t make their own choices. They insist that government should control women’s choices and women’s bodies.
The November election will demand that we decide again about abortion access because the Dobbs decision took away federal protection for women’s rights. So, what should we believe?
I ask you to believe in the wisdom of women themselves to choose appropriately. Not once in 20 years of medicine did I ever recommend abortion. It was my place to explain the options. It was the woman’s place to choose the option best for her and her family. That is the fundamental basis of our individual constitutional rights.
The Nov. 8 general election requires us to choose: Whom do we trust? The choice is exceptionally clear.
I will vote for candidates whose past actions match their current positions on abortion access. I will vote for candidates who recognize that women are capable of determining their own futures. I will vote for candidates who reject government control over women’s bodies — either at the state or federal level.
Please do the same.
Dan Murphy has lived and worked in Johnson County for 45 years. He recently retired after practicing family medicine in Merriam for nearly 20 years.
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