Banning late-term abortions is popular, but banning abortions in the first trimester is very unpopular, as is banning abortions after only six weeks of pregnancy, which polls show voters oppose. When Republican states ban abortions in the first trimester, it creates such a backlash that Democrats take control of state supreme courts in elections, and take control of state legislatures that previously were divided between the political parties. Voters in Minnesota and Michigan gave Democrats control of their state legislatures after seeing Republicans largely ban abortion in parts of the Deep South. In Wisconsin, voters gave Democrats control of the state supreme court, citing a desire to have the state Supreme Court strike down Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban, which Republican legislators failed to repeal after it was revived by a U.S. Supreme Court decision saying the federal constitution doesn’t prevent states from banning abortion.
When Democrats take control of state legislatures, they then pass legislation making it easier to perform third-term abortions, such as partial-birth abortions. They also increase public funding for abortion and crack down on pro-life pregnancy centers. Republicans need to stop doing things that backfire, like banning abortions in the first trimester, or banning abortions after a mere 6 weeks of pregnancy. If they keep pushing such bans on abortion, left-wing Democrats will make big gains in upcoming elections, and government spending, taxes, and crime will increase due to the left-wing policies those Democrats enact. Meanwhile, freedom of speech and freedom of religion will shrink due to the woke policies Democrats pass after taking over, like forcing religious physicians to perform sex changes on minors, forcing nuns to pay for abortion coverage (as already happened in California, before a court stopped it), forcing religious people to use made-up gender pronouns like ze and zir (as has already happened in Oregon), and making it easier to get rid of college professors and teachers who criticize affirmative action or disapprove of homosexuality or gay marriage (which some leftists argue is “discriminatory harassment”). Trying to ban abortion in the first trimester often doesn’t even work, because people either travel out of state to get an abortion, or use an abortion pill that could be obtained on the black market. Banning abortion before 12 weeks of pregnancy would be political suicide for Republicans in much of the country. If they keep trying to do it, Democrats will expand control of Congress, reelect Joe Biden, and appoint progressive Supreme Court justices who create a constitutional right to late-term abortion and partial-birth abortion.
Ann Coulter, a staunch pro-lifer for decades, explains how restrictions on abortion in the first trimester are killing the GOP’s chances of winning the 2024 election and giving Democrats control of some states:
Extremists have got to learn to take half a loaf. Just like the cheap labor-demanding GOP donors, pro-lifers need to be told: You can’t get everything you want. If Republicans give you this, they’ll lose their jobs, and the people who’ll replace them want you dead.
Unlike a lot of people complaining about the anti-abortion zealots, I am an anti-abortion zealot. That’s why I’m begging them to stop pushing wildly unpopular ideas. These fanatics are going to get millions more babies killed when Democrats win supermajorities in both houses of Congress and immediately pass a federal law making abortion-on-demand the law of the land.
They’re also going to get a lot more adults killed when those same Democratic supermajorities pass laws taking our guns, defunding the police and packing the court, among other great Democratic ideas.
We’ve been rolling our eyes at pro-choicers forever, telling them to calm down, that overturning Roe would just return the issue to the states. Blue states would make abortion legal until the kid turns 14. A few states, like Louisiana, would impose tough restrictions, but most states would come out in the middle — allowing abortions in the first trimester, plus parental notification laws, and exceptions for rape and incest.
Instead, the moment Dobbs was released, pro-life nuts rushed to the mics, saying, This is gonna be great! We’re going to ban abortion from the moment of conception and prosecute the mothers for murder!
The Democratic Party has been using abortion to scare suburban women in every election cycle for 50 years. Now, Republicans are finally giving them something to be scared about.
In Michigan, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, Tudor Dixon, said she opposed abortion for 14-year-old girls who’d been raped because giving birth to her rapist’s baby could be “healing.”
Does the name Todd Akin mean anything to you? Anything at all? Richard Mourdock?
Dixon lost by 11 points.
Pennsylvania responded, Watch this! Doug Mastriano, Republican candidate for governor, called abortion the “number one” issue of his campaign and said he looked forward to signing a six-week abortion ban. In 2019, he’d called for criminally prosecuting women who got abortions and doctors who performed them.
Mastriano lost by 15 points, taking the Republican Senate candidate down with him.
If we don’t bind and gag these pro-life militants, in about two more election cycles, we’ll have no Republicans in office anywhere. Good luck saving babies then!
Of course, it’s possible that there were other things voters didn’t like about Dixon and Mastriano.
Ah, but we also have pure test cases. Since Dobbs, there have been a total of six statewide ballot initiatives exclusively about abortion. The pro-life side lost every single time. They lost in blue states, in purple states and in red states. They were not outspent. These were direct-to-the-people votes. The tiniest restriction on abortion failed — even wholly theoretical restrictions! Every expansion of abortion rights won.
Army of Todd Akins: I don’t care! They’re wrong! They’re evil! What about the babies??? [Please give me a standing ovation now.]
In Montana, a proposal merely to require doctors to give life-saving treatment to babies born alive after a botched abortion lost 53% to 47%. Trump won Montana by 20 points in 2016 and 15 points in 2020.
In Kansas, pro-lifers wrote a ballot initiative that would have amended the constitution to clarify that it said nothing at all about abortion. The initiative placed no new restrictions on abortion, but simply moved the issue from the courts to the legislature.
It failed by 18 points, 59-41, losing in every congressional district in the state. Trump won Kansas by 20 points in 2016 and 15 points in 2020.
Kentucky voted on a similar initiative, proposing to amend the state constitution to say: “… nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.”
In three other states, Michigan, Vermont and California, voters put a right to abortion in their state constitutions.
Six ballot initiatives expressly on abortion, and the pro-life side lost ’em all.
We’ve been waiting half a century to get Roe overruled so Americans could finally vote on the issue. Well, guess what? They’ve voted! In the privacy of the voting booth, the people have spoken, and what they’ve said is: We don’t want the stupid and incompetent having any more babies.
The fanatics cite three Republican governors who won reelection after signing six-week abortion bans as proof that a certain miracle governor in Florida hasn’t just nuked his own presidential chances by approving such a law. All three governors signed their six-week bans when Roe was still the law of the land. All three bans were tied up in litigation on Election Day.
But more important, in the entire country, only one incumbent governor lost in 2022 — pro-life, pro-choice, it didn’t matter. Thirty-six governors up for reelection; 35 won.
The only flipped governorship was in Nevada, where the winning Republican, Joe Lombardo, said he opposed a national abortion ban. Luckily, abortion was a complete nonissue because state law already allows abortion up to 24 weeks and can only be changed by a vote of the people. (Lombardo also said there was no fraud in the 2020 election, for any Republicans who care about winning.)
But even in the face of a brutal 6-0 losing record, there are still pro-lifers who will say, I’m proud and I’d do it again! (Did you see my write-up in Catholic Insights magazine?)
This is our “DEFUND THE POLICE” faction — people whose ideological zealotry outruns their rationality.
Fine, be a showoff. Just understand, you’re going to get a lot more babies killed. I hope that’s worth your moral preening.
