.jpg)
Michigan could be the next state to put abortion on the November ballot, and Democrats no doubt hope it will juice turnout among their base, carrying Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to a second term and maybe flipping some House or state legislative races. Have Republicans devised a better strategy since this month’s blowout referendum in Kansas?
Michigan’s proposed constitutional amendment would create a right to “reproductive freedom,” including abortion access through fetal viability, which is roughly 24 weeks. Proponents needed to gather 425,059 signatures. They submitted about 750,000, which news reports say is the most ever for a Michigan initiative. Official certification to appear on the November ballot could come from a state board Wednesday.
The context is that Michigan has a 1931 law that broadly bans inducing miscarriage, with an exception “to preserve the life of such woman,” but not for victims of rape or incest. The law is on hold as court challenges play out, but it doesn’t seem to be consonant with public opinion in 2022, even in red states like Kansas, to say nothing of purple ones like Michigan.
Yet the proposed constitutional amendment would mirror the Supreme Court’s old standard under Roe v. Wade of requiring unrestricted abortion through about 24 weeks, and it isn’t clear that this is the plurality position either.
Nationally, the Gallup numbers say 67% of Americans want abortion to be “generally legal” in the first three months (12 weeks) of pregnancy. But only 36% say the same through the first six months (24 weeks). For Michigan residents, state data show that 89.5% of all reported abortions in 2021 were conducted in the first 12 weeks, according to the Detroit Free Press.
In other words, a Michigander could easily consider herself pro-choice and against the 1931 law, while also thinking the proposed constitutional amendment goes too far and that 24 weeks—nearly the start of the third trimester—is late for purely elective abortions. In a less polarized age, Gov. Whitmer and the Republican state Legislature could get together to agree on a line somewhere in between, at 12 weeks, or 15 or 18. Neither side would be thrilled, but that’s the nature of compromise.
Since that seems unlikely at the current political moment, voters might instead be given an all-or-nothing choice: approve the proposed constitutional amendment to codify the line at 24 weeks, or risk the enforcement of the 1931 law. For the pro-life side, this political prospect might be even worse than the lay of the land in Kansas. There the threat was the unknown, and voters decided against giving state lawmakers the power to legislate freely on abortion.
The lesson for pro-life Republicans from Kansas is that they would be better off politically if they put on the record the policy that they intend to pass. Fifteen weeks? With or without an exception for rape victims? Voters of all political persuasions want to know, and they won’t trust a Legislature that declines to specify. Michigan Republicans would be wise to answer the question long before November, and they can then defend that policy on the merits.
Or look at the recent transformation in Arizona of Blake Masters, the GOP Senate nominee. In the primary he said he was “100% Pro-Life.” Now he’s trying to put Democrat Mark Kelly on defense, saying that the Senator “votes for the most extreme abortion laws in the world.” Mr. Kelly is on record against parental consent requirements. “Ultimately I feel that young women at a certain age should have the rights to make these kind of decisions with their doctor,” he explained. What age? He wouldn’t say.
The public finds some of the Republican proposals on abortion extreme, and it finds some of the Democratic plans extreme, too. Outside the progressive coasts and the most conservative states, the side that will lose is the one that cedes the middle.
Courtesy - The WSJ
0 comments:
Post a Comment