Maybe people like having a say on abortion rights - American Thinker https://t.co/8XnucH6emQ
— Silvio Canto. Jr. (@silvio_canto) December 30, 2024
How many times did you hear that abortion would doom the GOP and President Trump's return to power? It was like "our daily bread" in the liberal media. Abortion was going to drive millions of women to the ballot box to settle the score over the overturning Roe.
Well, it didn't happen. It turns out that many men and women like the idea that they can make their own decisions, thanks to Dobbs. The so-called "abortion wave" did not happen. as Politico pointed out:
After campaigns to preserve abortion rights helped halt a red wave in 2022 and won Democrats key races in 2023, many in the party headed into November confident that putting the issue directly on the ballot in nearly a dozen states would juice turnout and pull swing voters to the left -- especially after Harris replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket and made a forceful defense of abortion rights her leading message. Clearly, that didn’t happen. Yes, abortion-rights ballot measures passed in seven more states and won majority support in Florida, though the measure failed because the state requires a 60 percent supermajority for passage. But voters in those same states, on the same ballot, voted for Republicans with a history of opposing abortion rights. Most Arizona voters, for instance, overturned a 15-week abortion ban and checked a box for Trump. Polling before and after the election showed that other issues -- including the economy and immigration -- took precedence for most voters, steering them toward GOP candidates. And many strategists and abortion-rights advocates believe the ballot measures created a “permission structure” for Republicans voters who were worried about the impact of bans on the procedure. There are a handful of states left where citizens can put an abortion-rights measure on the ballot in the future, and groups in Arkansas, Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota are likely to try again after initiatives there fell short or were blocked by courts this year. But the era of Democrats counting on such measures to boost their candidates’ chances is officially over.
Thank God that it's over. Maybe we can finally treat women with a little respect without assuming that all they care about is abortion.
My sense is that two other things happened.
First, voters got comfortable voting for abortion in their states. Here in Texas, we passed a "heartbeat law" and our neighbors in New Mexico voted for their own version of Roe. In the end, everybody is happy and democracy works as intended.
Second, and this may have been more important, voters did not go for the extreme position. You get the feeling that voters understood that there is something wrong with a culture that allows late-term abortions. Most voters saw that for what it was -- killing something that looks too much like a real baby.
So the critics of Roe got it right. Let the voters decide and things will work out. Abortion has finally been taken off the agenda on presidential elections. Yes, no more nominations for judges obsessed with Roe!
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