Activate Issue #5: Abortion and the Mid-Terms
On the importance of Democratic and Independent voter turnout for the 2022 midterms.
Activate’s Advisors are Nikola Bozinovic, Ellen Ehrenpreis, Catherine Foster, Jon Foster, Don Keller, and Glen Van Ligten
Here’s what the South Dakota legislature thinks of women’s ability to think through decisions about their own reproductive lives:
The Legislature finds that procedures terminating the life of an unborn child impose risks to the life and health of the pregnant woman. The Legislature further finds that a woman seeking to terminate the life of her unborn child may be subject to pressures which can cause an emotional crisis, undue reliance on the advice of others, clouded judgment, and a willingness to violate conscience to avoid those pressures.”
South Dakota Codified Laws 34-23A-1.4. South Dakota, like more than 25 other states in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is relieving pregnant women of this “emotional crisis” by making the decision for them. The Republican party would like to do the same for women everywhere in the United States.
The Democrats, on the other hand, would like to codify Roe v. Wade nationally. But they stand little chance of that if the GOP takes either or both houses of Congress in the midterms. And history suggests the GOP could do just that. (Since 1946, only two presidents (Clinton and Bush, Jr.) gained ground in the House in the midterms, and even then, only by a few seats (five in 1998 and eight in 2002).) Given the small current Democratic majority in the House, there is virtually no margin for losing seats in the 2022 midterms.
Though historical patterns give little cause for optimism, voter turnout could alter the calculus in 2022. Midterm elections are notoriously low-turnout affairs: without a presidential election at the top of the ballot—or a political earthquake of some kind—fewer people are motivated to vote. But the Supreme Court (with some follow-on help from extreme elements of the GOP) may have created just such an earthquake. In the last month of its term, the Supreme Court handed down several new precedent-shattering decisions on such hot button topics as gun control, school prayer, and the power of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. The collection of these cases could motivate Democrats and Independents to vote in November, but none are as likely to drive voters to the polls as the Court’s decision in Dobbs reversing Roe v Wade. Abortion isn’t a close question in the American electorate: in Pew Research’s polling last March—before Dobbs—nearly two-thirds of Americans said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Even in the GOP, 69% of those who describe themselves as moderates favor abortion; 80% of Democrats favor preserving the right.
Is abortion likely to turn out voters in November? In an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll conducted in late June, nearly two-thirds of registered voters say the Supreme Court’s decision will make them more likely to vote in the mid-terms, with Democrats (at 78%) more motivated than Republicans (54%). More than half the voters nationally say they are more likely to vote for a Congressional candidate who would vote to codify Roe. Given the significant number of Democratic voters (89%) and Independents (55%) who expressed concern that the Supreme Court will use Dobbs to reconsider other cases premised on the same privacy right (e.g., contraception and same sex marriage), the effect on the election could be profound. At the moment, Dobbs does seem to be having an effect: polling on a generic ballot (“Do voters want Democrats or Republicans in Congress”) shows the GOP advantage shrinking since Dobbs to a razor-thin margin.
Meanwhile, the GOP is doing its level best to continue to rile the pro-choice crowd by threatening employers in Texas with prosecution for providing travel benefits to employees who need to leave the state to secure reproductive health services, and by endorsing the notion that even 10-year-old rape victims should be forced to give birth to their rapist’s baby. And by claiming the story of an actual 10-year-old rape victim who had to travel from Ohio to Indiana for an abortion was a lie. When the rapist confessed, Indiana Republicans switched gears, to threaten “investigation” of the Indiana abortion doctor who provided that legal abortion to the child for purportedly violating child abuse or abortion notification laws. (She timely reported both.) Republicans have also blocked proposed federal legislation aimed at protecting pregnant women’s right to leave their states to obtain legal abortions elsewhere.
Lest there be any doubt that the animating principal of red state abortion bans is that women cannot be trusted to make their own decisions on this subject—women seeking abortions are in “emotional crisis” and suffer “clouded judgment,” after all—the Republican lawyer who authored the model legislation being adopted across the red states even had this to say about little girls who, like the 10-year-old Ohio child, are impregnated by their rapists: “She would have had the baby, and as many women who have had babies as a result of rape, we would hope that she would understand the reason and ultimately the benefit of having the child.”
The more Republicans try to one-up each other on this front, the more they will motivate Democratic and Independent voters to show up for the midterms, if current polling is any indication.
It hardly needs saying that if the GOP wins the House, any Democratic hopes of codifying Roe will end. (Not to mention any chance of passing voting rights legislation, or completing the work of the January 6 Select Committee, or passing gun regulation, climate legislation, etc.). And a GOP-led House will not only disband the January 6 Committee, the so-called “Freedom Caucus” will follow through on threats of abusive investigations of invented claims of wrongdoing in the Biden administration and even impeachment of Merrick Garland.
In short, the upside is great, and the downside is horrific. If Democrats and Independents turn out like they did in 2020, the cruel effects of Dobbs can be blunted with federal legislation. If the GOP takes the House, women and girls will suffer and die for want of reproductive choice.
But the battle is an uphill one, if history is any guide. What can you do? If you can spare the time and/or money, check out SwingLeft. The organization conducts real-time assessments (and reassessments) of winnable races and connect donors and volunteers with campaigns where their money and work can have the greatest impact. Emily’s List has a strong get-out-the-vote track record for its candidates, and a focus on pro-choice women, and Fair Fight is the national voter participation organization that Stacey Abrams founded.