Republicans are showing their hand on abortion

Everybody knows – or at least suspects – how Republicans feel about abortion rights. Though they talk about “loving them both” (a common right-wing phrase about supposedly embracing both the pregnant women and the foetus at the same time) and about small government, most liberals and progressives know that those who oppose abortion usually do so because they want to control women’s bodies. At its core, it is a hardline evangelical belief based on conservative gender roles – which makes it somewhat ironic that Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said “we’re not going to be like Iran” when he talked about restricting abortion limits. (In Graham’s telling, Iran is an abortion-on-demand state replete with terminations. Anyone with a passing knowledge of geopolitics knows this isn’t true.)

But most Republicans didn’t expect the outcry when Roe v Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court. Though the party has been leaning further and further right over the past decade, everyday Americans have not – even if a handful of them are radical. Most Americans support some form of access to abortion. And when the very Republican state of Kansas had a vote on whether to ban abortion in the state, many members of the GOP were surprised. Kansans roundly rejected the proposal, pointing to a distaste at the idea of abortion restrictions among the core Republican electorate. Many Americans, after all, vote Republican not because they believe in evangelical or right-wing ideological policies, but because they are essentially libertarian. Restricting a person’s right to do what they want with their body just doesn’t chime with those kinds of voters.

Some Republican hardliners, however, have not been dissuaded. Graham this week announced he was planning to introduce a bill to Congress which would ban abortion nationally after 15 weeks except in cases of rape, incest or imminent danger to the mother’s life. The fallout was immediate. Protests exploded across the country. Republicans themselves couldn’t distance themselves fast enough; even Trump sycophant Mitch McConnell said that he and most of his party members preferred it remained a case of “states deciding”.

“States’ rights” has been the cry from the GOP ever since Roe v Wade was overturned. The party of small governance and Constitutional originalism claims that it just wants most decisions handed back to the individual states. After the Supreme Court’s decision, Graham – and a number of his compatriots – said he was glad abortion was now subject to state-level legislation, and added that the same should be done with gay marriage (many feared the same could be done with interracial marriage, too.) Republicans kept singing from that playbook for a long time: states’ rights, states’ rights, states’ rights. It’s all about giving the people more rights, not taking them away – promise!

Now, however, Graham has shown his hand. He did not want to see Roe overturned because of some noble pursuit of more democratic rule. He clearly wants to see women’s rights restricted across the country, whether or not American citizens agree. In doing so, Graham has made the playbook look very suspect and Republicans look very dishonest. This is the last thing McConnell or any swing-state Republican wants as we approach the November midterms.

In the states I have travelled to while reporting on abortion rights – Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas – I found that most people said they “don’t support abortion” but equally wouldn’t want that right “taken away”. Though I’ve seen my fair share of “PRAY TO END ABORTION” placards balanced on Southern doorsteps, the people I spoke to – even the people with rosaries hanging from their rearview mirrors and people who were raised in small, conservative towns – thought abortion was largely a private matter.

American conservatives often say they believe sex education shouldn’t be taught in schools because it’s a private matter best left to families. They wax lyrical about the need to keep family planning discreet. It’s hard to argue you’re just supporting individual freedoms and privacy when you’re legislating for federal bans. Some might say it makes you look like a gigantic hypocrite.

Yours,

Holly Baxter

US Voices editor