Today marks the 51st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision. But it’s a hollow anniversary, as the constitutional right to an abortion is gone, eliminated by a Supreme Court that’s became home to a conservative supermajority thanks to Donald Trump, a guy who was once “very pro-choice” but is now lionized by the religious right. And as Trump cruises to the GOP nomination, he’s taking credit for the “miracle” of getting Roe “terminated.”
Despite such a devastating decision, Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett texted me about how the loss of Roe has become a rallying cry for the women of Texas: “While women have been underestimated throughout history, when we fight, we win!” She said that “brave Texas women fought to give us the Roe decision before, and brave Texas women such as Kate Cox and Dr. Austin Dennard,” who were prevented from having emergency abortions despite deadly fetal diagnoses, “are fighting to get our freedoms back that the Supreme Court unjustifiably ripped away from us.”
Even after achieving their presumed goal—to strip a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, and then take medical decisions out of the hands of doctors and effectively put them into the hands of right-wing politicians—antiabortion crusaders aren’t satisfied or satiated. On Friday, thousands of activists converged in Washington, DC, for the second March for Life rally since Roe’s demise. “Some march participants said they had thought that the ruling would result in a change of heart in the country around abortion and that they were disappointed,” according to The Washington Post. “Others are hoping for a federal abortion ban. Still others want the focus to be on limiting abortion pills.”
It seems that the people who claimed abortion was a states’ rights issue are now desperate for a federal abortion ban, which would effectively take the right completely away from the states. (Abortion is already banned in 14 states post-Roe.) Yet GOP calls for a nationwide ban come as Americans are supporting abortion access at near-record levels, with an October poll finding about 55% in favor of access to the procedure for any reason.
Meanwhile, abortion bans and restrictions have become a harbinger of doom for this Trumpified Republican Party. Voters in deep red Kansas rejected an antiabortion measure in August 2022, and the midterms months later demonstrated that abortion rights can galvanize voters. This past November, Democrat Andy Beshear handily won reelection in deep red Kentucky while leaning into abortion rights, as voters in GOP-friendly Ohio enshrined the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. Over in purple Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin failed to flip the statehouse, dashing his hopes of enacting a more focus-grouped 15-week abortion ban.
Abortion bans are so unpopular that Republicans have decided they need to change the messaging around them. National Republican Congressional Committee chair Richard Hudson told Punchbowl News, “[Candidates] need to articulate their position to the voters, because the voters think the Republican position is like, ‘We’ll throw you in jail if you get an abortion.’” He continued: “Republicans don’t have a policy problem. We have a branding problem.” Perhaps Hudson should tell that to the Texas woman who nearly died of sepsis due to the state’s draconian abortion ban.
Or perhaps Hudson can explain the branding problem to Jaci Statton, a 20-something Oklahoma woman who had a cancerous, nonviable molar pregnancy and said she was told to sit in the parking lot and wait for dangerous complications. “‘We cannot touch you unless you are crashing in front of us or your blood pressure goes so high that you are fixing to have a heart attack,’” she recalled of what she was told by hospital staff.
Republicans who think abortion bans simply have a branding problem appear incapable of seeing how these severe restrictions endanger women and represent a profound sea change in allowing Republican politicians to dictate medical policy, whether they have the faintest knowledge of how the human body works or not.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are marking this week’s anniversary by highlighting GOP attacks on abortion rights and announcing new steps to support abortion access As White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre emailed me, “Women are being turned away from emergency rooms, doctors can be charged with felonies, and many of the state bans in place have no exceptions for rape or incest. When the Supreme Court—enabled by justices nominated by Donald Trump—took the outrageous step of forcing politicians into the most personal decisions women make, President Biden said, ‘I don’t think the Court or, for that matter, the Republicans who for decades have pushed their extreme agenda, have a clue about the power of American women.’ The American people are making themselves heard loud and clear, with record support for reproductive rights across the country. President Biden and Vice President Harris are fighting to restore our freedoms every day, and no nationwide abortion ban will ever be allowed while President Biden holds a veto pen.”
Banning abortion in 14 states didn’t reduce abortions; it just made it more dangerous to be pregnant. Republicans have kept losing since Roe because they don’t care about the health of pregnant women, apparently thinking they know better than doctors. But on this 51st anniversary of Roe, it’s important to remember the fundamental reason Republicans keep losing: People don’t like having an existing, and hard-fought, right taken away from them. No one wants to go backward.