If Republicans love states’ rights so much, they should put abortion on the ballot
Republican leaders and the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court like to talk about “states’ rights,” especially when it comes to taking personal freedoms away from Americans – such as abortion rights. Yet, what they really mean is leaving decisions up to right-wing state legislatures to make these decisions, not the people themselves.
A recent USA Today/Ipsos Poll showed that “Americans overwhelmingly would like to be able to vote on an abortion measure on their state ballot.” The poll also revealed that Americans, by an almost 2-to-1 margin (54% to 28%), would vote in favor of making abortion legal. That number includes 76% of Democrats, 52% of independents and even 34% of Republicans.
- Republicans originally thought overturning Roe v. Wade was worthy of celebration, but they’re now realizing that they were wrong. Voters in conservative Kansas overwhelmingly shot down a measure that would have removed abortion rights from the state constitution and, as the Wall Street Journal reported, their polling showed an 8-point swing among independents who now favor Democrats by 3% in a generic congressional matchup.
- The WSJ poll also showed abortion as the single biggest issue most likely to drive voters to the polls this fall. According to Politico, “Republicans…thought they had finally achieved a breakthrough with suburban women after years of losing support” – but they are now back to square one, trying to convince women to vote for the party that is more than happy to take away their rights.
- Many extremist Republicans, including North Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Ted Budd and 13th Congressional District candidate Bo Hines, are either backpedaling on their previously proud anti-abortion views or pretending abortion isn’t an issue and removing it from their platform altogether.
As the USA Today/Ipsos Poll revealed, abortion rights have strong support among Democrats and independents, and letting voters actually vote on their own rights that were taken away by the Supreme Court has high support among all voters.
According to USA Today, at least four states will have abortion measures on the ballot this fall: California, Kentucky, Montana and Vermont, and Michigan is “likely” to put abortion rights up for a vote. For the other states, Republicans now have to be concerned that if voters can’t vote for the right to abortion access, then they will vote for the candidates who do – Democrats.
