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What’s happening with the politics of abortion in the U.S= .? Bill Scher on how one of America’s most divisive issues could help= depolarize its politics.

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Common Ground

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What’s = happening with the politics of abortion in the U.S.? Bill Scher on how one of America’s most divisive issues could help depolar= ize its politics.

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Rodrigo G= onzalez

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It wa= s a stunning political turn following a dramatic legal develo= pment in America: Less than six weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court revoked = a 49-year national right to abortion—overturning 1972’s Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health O= rganization—the conservative state of Kansas was the site of an = overwhelming political victory for abortion rights. In an August 2 referend= um, voters rejected a proposed amendment to the constitution of their state= that would have ended the right to abortion there. The result was decisive= —59 percent voting against the amendment and only 41 percent in favor= , with 95 percent of the results reported. For an anti-abortion movement th= at worked to secure the overturning of Roe for half a ce= ntury, Dobbs was its triumph; yet polls now show most Am= ericans oppose the decision—and Democrats are eager to talk about new= Republican restrictions on abortion as this fall’s U.S. midterm elec= tions approach. How are the politics of this issue shifting?

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Bill = Scher is an American journalist and a contributor to The Wash= ington Monthly. Scher says it’s too soon to gauge the full consequenc= es of the Kansas referendum—or the broader effects on U.S. politics t= hat Dobbs might be having—but he sees a c= lear potential for the abortion-rights movement to gain greater political a= dvantage over the coming months, especially with so many Americans viewing = new Republican restrictions on abortion as extreme. In fact, Scher thinks t= he United States could be entering a period when abortion becomes less of a= polarizing issue in the U.S., consistent with most Americans’ belief= that the procedure should remain legal within certain restrictions. In the= immediate future, Scher says, Dobbs has set up a highly= unusual dynamic for the midterms—with Republicans now out of power i= n Congress and the White House yet responsible for a massive disruption to = politics and policy on an issue that will be weighing on voters’ mind= s.

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—&mdash= ;—

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Graha= m Vyse: What brought about this referendum in Kansas, in the first= place?

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Bill = Scher: In 2015, Kansas’ Republican-controlled state legislat= ure passed a law that would have banned so-called “dilation and evacu= ation” procedures used in late-term abortions. But Kansas’ Supr= eme Court struck down the law and interpreted the state constitution as pro= tecting a basic right to abortion. Certainly, many abortion regulations rem= ain on the books in Kansas—the procedure isn’t permitted after = 22 weeks of pregnancy unless the life or health of the mother is threatened= , there are parental-consent requirements for minors, and there’s no = taxpayer funding for abortion at all—but, according to the Court, the= law of the State of Kansas protected a basic right to end a pregnancy. =09=09=09=09=09=09

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Republicans i= n Kansas weren’t happy with that decision, so they decided last year = to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot—as a referendum= —to supersede the state Supreme Court ruling and allow the legislatur= e to ban abortion. They scheduled the referendum for this month; abortion-r= ights advocates believe Republicans thought the date would be advantageous,= because it was the same day as the state’s primary elections—a= nd primaries in Kansas don’t usually bring out many Democratic voters= , since there aren’t often important, contested Democratic primaries = there. The Republicans may also have believed that many younger Kansans and= college students—who are likely to be left-leaning voters—woul= d be away in the summertime. What Republicans obviously didn’t know l= ast year was that the U.S. Supreme Court would have overturned Roe= v. Wade, raising the stakes of the issue—especially for ab= ortion-rights supporters.

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This was the = first real test of abortion politics after Roe’s overtu= rn, and the two sides were well-matched and well-funded, yet the vote wasn&= rsquo;t close. In the end, with more than 921,000 votes cast in the referen= dum, 59 percent of voters supported the abortion-rights side while 41 perce= nt chose the anti-abortion side. The abortion-rights voters included indepe= ndents and Republicans; it was a unifying vote that transcended the polariz= ation we often say is plaguing America. Keep in mind that Kansas isn’= t a swing state. It’s not evenly divided between Democrats and Republ= icans. It has a Democratic governor, but it’s a Republican state that= voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump and sends Republican senators to Was= hington, D.C.

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Vyse<= /strong>: How did the public debate over this referendum play out?

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Advertise= ment

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Scher= : The public debate showed that the anti-abortion side was playing= defense—and knew they were playing defense. They ran a less-than-for= thright campaign, candidly. They didn’t say, Pass this so we= can get rid of abortion. They presented their case as though the= y were simply pushing to keep regulations on abortion that everyone agreed = on.

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Meanwhile, th= e abortion-rights side waged a fierce campaign. As I’ve written at The Washington Monthly, they = framed the proposed amendment as a government mandate. They struck a lot of= libertarian themes.

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They had a lo= t of male narrators and male on-camera speakers in their ads, including a d= octor who said the amendment would violate his oath to do no harm. They had= a male pastor arguing it would harm religious freedom. Then they had a wom= an saying she had a husband and three-year-old son who needed her, and an a= bortion had been necessary to save her life. They had a Catholic grandmothe= r who expressed discomfort about abortion—and said she hadn’t t= alked much about the issue when she was growing up—yet believed her g= randdaughter should be able to make her own decisions. Other advertising st= ressed the abortion regulations that were already on the books—the fa= ct that abortion is already highly regulated in Kansas. They emphasized tha= t the amendment could lead to a total ban on abortion with no exceptions fo= r rape and incest. The ads clearly resonated with swing voters—center= -right Kansans who don’t love abortion and may not connect with the w= ay progressives talk about the issue.

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Nationally, t= here’s been some debate among Democrats and progressives about how to= talk about abortion: Do we say the word “abortion”? D= o we say “decision” instead of “choice”? Do we not = say “safe, legal, and rare” anymore? The winning Kans= as campaign wasn’t consumed by any of that. They had some ads that sa= id “decision” and some that said “choice” and some = that didn’t say either. Sometimes they said “abortion” an= d sometimes they didn’t. They weren’t trying to pacify differen= t Democratic Party factions organized in Washington, D.C.; they were focuse= d on what would resonate with middle-of-the-road Kansas voters. Incidentall= y, the campaign was devised by a consulting firm in D.C., but they made sma= rt choices.

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Megan Bur= ns

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More from= Bill Scher at The Signal:

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“The basic fear was that many Americans would lose their rig= hts, that the trajectory of their lives would be altered unfavorably, and t= hat the United States would be a nation divided, where people have rights i= n some states and not in others—akin to the days of the Missouri Comp= romise and the Fugitive Slave Act.”

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“Kansas shows that a whole lot of states in the U.S. might n= ot want to give up abortion rights. Not every state has the opportunity for= a referendum—in fact, most states in the Deep South don’t&mdas= h;but most of the Western and Midwestern states do. In past decades, we&rsq= uo;ve seen the anti-abortion side lose referendums in South Dakota and Miss= issippi. So this might ultimately be a depolarizing moment when Americans r= ediscover a unifying consensus that transcends other divisions they have.&r= dquo;

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“There’s always going to be a faction of people in Ame= rica who strenuously oppose abortion, regardless of what the Supreme Court = says—and we shouldn’t expect them ever to give up. They’r= e going to continue to push these political debates. We’re having int= ense arguments on the issue right now, across the United States, and there = are plenty of those whose lives are being affected in the process. I’= m not sanguine about the current state of affairs, but life is complicated = and good things can happen alongside bad things. We can rediscover what uni= tes us in hard times, and Kansas provides hope that we might.”

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The Signal&nbs= p;explores urgent questions in current events around the world—to sup= port it and for full access:

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