Just hours after Politico revealed a leak of the Supreme Court’s likely decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and return the issue to the states, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed into law a Texas-style ban on abortion.
While the law doesn’t ban abortion outright, it makes it illegal for abortionists to kill an embryo after its heartbeat can be detected. A last-minute appeal to the state’s Supreme Court to delay its implementation failed, and Oklahoma joined over 20 other states with similar bans on abortion, according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.
Those states include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, and Florida are on the verge of passing laws restricting abortion. In Georgia, an abortion-limiting bill was previously overturned, but it would go into effect if the high court returns the issue to the states.
President Biden thinks the decision leak could help Democrats in November:
If the court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose.
And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November. At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice senators and a pro-choice majority in the house to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.
Leaders from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the Democratic Governors Association (DGA), the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), and the Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA) joined together in hoping that the leaked decision will help their cause. They wrote:
At this moment of crisis, Democrats are standing shoulder to shoulder with millions of Americans in this fight. And in November, we must elect Democrats who will serve as the last lines of defense against the GOP’s assault on our established and fundamental freedoms.
They are going to have a tough time galvanizing sufficient voter support even to come close to closing the ever-growing gap between Democratic and Republican voters, as last year’s gubernatorial election in Virginia revealed. Democrat Terry McAuliffe focused heavily on abortion after Texas passed its Heartbeat Act, but his campaign came up short, losing to now-Governor Glenn Youngkin.
Politico, following its blockbuster revelation of the high court’s pending decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and return the issue to the states, interviewed more than a dozen Democratic pollsters and strategists and uncovered “a scramble within the party” to determine just how to take advantage of the situation. “Few,” wrote Politico, “believe it would be enough to offset the brutal midterm environment and … Joe Biden’s sagging approval ratings.”
One of those interviewed by Politico, Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky, fears that more-pressing issues are likely to divert the average voter’s attention away from the abortion issue:
Midterm voters care about affordability first and foremost, and they are not people who are worried every single day about losing access to abortion.
My fear continues to be that sometimes we as Democrats run on things that we wish the voters cared about, rather than what the voters do care about.
The day after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, Democratic donors poured more than $30 million into ActBlue, the fundraising company that funnels donor contributions to various Democratic candidates and progressive groups. But the day after Politico leaked the revelation over Roe v. Wade, ActBlue took in just $9 million, only a slight uptick from the day before.
In fact, some of those interviewed by Politico think the issue, no matter how it is played, will hurt Democrats’ chances come November. The party is already suffering a dreadful loss of support from its socially conservative Latino demographic, and pushing the narrative opposing the decision could further damage the party among that demographic.
Upon learning of the leak, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick tweeted:
If accurate that Roe v. Wade is set to be overturned, this is a great day for innocent babies in the womb. They will finally be safe in Texas and other Republican states.
Prayerfully, in time, all states will protect them.
Related article:
