Even a Plurality of Republicans Don’t Want a National Abortion Ban

Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:57 pm

Even a plurality of Republicans oppose the Republican-led national abortion ban efforts.

Nearly 7 in ten Americans oppose a nationwide abortion ban, including pluralities of independents and Republicans, according to a new Navigator study.

Thomas’ illegitimate court forced many Americans to realize that they are actually pro-choice: “Net opposition has increased by 6 points since late June (from net -35 to net -41).”

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“Majorities of Democrats (81%) and independents (60%) describe themselves as pro-choice and disapprove of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade (78% and 56%, respectively).”

Women voters are not impressed with Republican-led attack on their basic healthcare rights. Women trust Biden and Democrats more to protect abortion rights by 37 points and to fight abortion bans by 44 points; independents also trust Biden and Democrats more to protect abortion rights by 25 points and to fight bans by 36 points.

To overcome women’s concerns with their physical safety, Republicans are trying to hammer “school choice” and “parents rights” (aka, spurious objections to critical race theory, which is generally not even taught in schools but should be, and using trans rights to fearmonger suburban moms).

The problem with the Republican approach is that many suburban moms have daughters, and many have justifiable fears of their daughter being unable to get life-saving care or an abortion if she is raped.

The study found people most concerned with “forcing women to carry stillborn babies for a full nine months and lack of exceptions to protect the health of the mother.”

It is hard to sell “pro-life” when people are reading stories about women’s health being destroyed due to “pro-life” policies. It’s also heartbreaking to read the stories of life-threatening complications pregnant people are enduring post-Roe, a concern which was also cited in the poll:

“The most concerning realities of a post-Roe America focus on the physical dangers and hardships that pregnant Americans have had to endure as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe.”

A majority of people do not believe the government should be able to force personal medical decisions upon citizens and also believe that there should always be exceptions for rape, incest, life and health of the mother. If you’re not in a cult and you have a reasonable capacity for critical thinking, you realize that with those exceptions, the entire premise of “pro-life” ideology fails.

The problem with pro-life ideology is it is based on a failed premise that cells should have more rights than the human being carrying it. This is a legal precedent that clearly sets the stage for widespread abuse of civil rights and encompasses removing personhood rights from people who can get pregnant. It is at its core the essence of anti-liberty.

What many haven’t realized until Roe was overturned is that abortion is healthcare. It is a human right. It is necessary. No one likes abortion, just like no one likes going in for heart surgery. But it is necessary sometimes, and in a free country, all people should have access to good care.

In the post-Roe landscape, women who are being refused proper medical care have also had possible future pregnancies jeopardized. For people who have longed to give birth, this is a horrific loss.

There is nothing about the post-Roe landscape that looks “pro-life.” The Supreme Court unintentionally outed the horrifying reality of life without abortion when they overturned Roe.

Conservatives have long struggled with the fundamental tenet of their belief system, which is that it is not meant to respond to the public but rather to dictate to. When this becomes apparent, they find new ways to appeal to voters, like marrying their cause to a radicalized and now unrecognizable form of corporatized Christianity. After all, Ezekiel 37:5-6 states that life begins at first breath.

Remember when conservatives claimed the ten year old denied an abortion in Ohio after she was raped was a lie? It turned out to be true, and then they said it was “rare” but now, at least two more minors who were raped were denied an abortion in Ohio. Affidavits filed in Cincinnati “also describe more than two dozen other instances in which the abortion law put women under extreme duress.”

Indeed, 34% of victims of sexual assault and rape are under the age 12. Children cannot safely carry a pregnancy to term, and the United Nations deems withholding necessary abortion care from a child a human rights abuse.

To deal with this tidal wave of disapproval over a national abortion ban proposed by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham in the lead-up to the midterms, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has tried to dodge the bullet by claiming they think it’s a state’s rights issue.

But we are seeing it in action as a state’s rights issue already, and it is not palatable.

Americans faced with the brutal realities of life without abortion find it difficult to cling to the previously rather popular but vague notion that it was moral to be “pro-life.” In reality, refusing abortion is immoral and even a plurality of Republicans can see that.

It remains to be seen whether Roe will impact the expectations and turnout for the midterm elections, but it has already substantially impacted voter registrations. A functioning democratic government should be responsive to the people — and while it’s true that the people don’t always know best, they certainly know dangerously egregious abuse of power when they see it.

Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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