What Happened to Abortion

By BARRY FRIEDMAN

In 2022, voters in Kansas rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment that outlawed abortion. The vote was 59% to 41% to keep reproductive choice. Within milliseconds, because the misogyny is strong in the Sunflower State, the Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature approved, in an 81-39 vote, a bill that would require providers to ask patients 11 belittling questions about their reasons for terminating a pregnancy, including if the woman was talked into it.

Lovely.

Before that vote, before the referendum on the amendment, Republicans had a two-thirds majority in the state House and Senate.

If you thought, as I did, the GOP would pay for political deafness, you’d be wrong.

After the 2024 election, the GOP majority is pretty much the same.

Nationally, Kansas has four congressional seats, three of which, before the abortion vote, were held by Republicans — Tracey Mann, Jake LaTurner and Ron Estes, all of whom were against abortion rights. After November, Republicans still held those seats, overwhelmingly. Mann garnered 70 %t of the vote; Estes 65% and, after LaTurner decided not to run for re-election, Derek Schmidt won with 57%.

(The lone Democrat, Sharice Davids, won by 53%.)

So what happened to all those predictions from all those talking political heads in 2023 and early 2024 that abortion would be the seminal, transcendent issue of November’s election? Kansas was supposed to be the canary in America’s coal mine. There were 10 states where abortion was directly on the ballot. Democrats were going to be the beneficiaries.

What happened?

Of those 10 states, some form of rights to protection abortion passed in seven of them — Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and New York — and failed in three — Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota.

(It actually passed in Florida with 57% of the vote but the state has a 60% threshold for such constitutional question, so it was defeated. More on that in a moment.)

And what did all that mean for Democrats?

Don’t ask.

In 2023, voters in Ohio voted 56.8% to 43.2% to guarantee the right to an abortion. In 2024, Democratic Incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown, who supported that measure, lost to Republican Bernie Moreno, who opposed it. Republicans hold 65 of 99 seats in the Ohio House, and 24 of 33 in Ohio Senate.

And Donald Trump won the state.

In Missouri, voters overturned a near-total ban on abortion after the fall of Roe v. Wade. The amendment that passed enshrines abortion rights into the constitution — this over the objections of the heavily Republican state leadership.

What did the vote mean for Republicans in the Show Me State?

I told you: don’t ask.

They have 111-51 advantage in the state’s House of Representatives and a 23-9 advantage in the state Senate. U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, who opposed that amendment, was re-elected easily.

And Donald Trump won the state.

In Montana, which passed a measure keeping abortion legal, Republican Tim Sheehy, who opposed the measure, defeated Senator Jon Tester, who supported it. Sheehy, incidentally, has called abortion murder, accused Democrats of killing babies after they’re born, and said women are indoctrinated when it comes to have the procedure.

And Donald Trump won the state.

Now to Florida.

On the ballot in November was a measure to protect the rights of women seeking an abortion. It was approved by almost 57% of the vote; however, as mentioned, it needed 60% to become law. Incumbent Republican Senator Rick Scott, who opposed the measure, easily beat Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who supported it. Scott has called abortion “abhorrent … kills human children … and has no place in our society.” Republicans retained their super majorities in both the state House and Senate.

And Donald Trump won the state.

The hell’s going on?

How is that that voters are supporting abortion rights, while simultaneously voting for those who would take those rights away?

This isn’t a disconnect — it’s schizophrenia.

What does Rick Scott and Josh Hawley have to do? Campaign on a slogan “Your Body, My Choice” to prove they are serious about wanting to control the nation’s uteri?

More troubling, how did we get to a point where the national Republican Party pays no price for its position on reproductive rights? Did even one GOP candidate lose for being too demonic on the issue? And this is after a GOP-installed SCOTUS majority overturned Roe v Wade, after women have bled-out in hospital parking lots because doctors were afraid to abort ectopic pregnancies, and after the party’s presidential nominee Donald Trump was found liable for sexual battery against, E. Jean Carroll.

Speaking of, Trump said during the campaign, “Everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (the will of the people!)”

And what if he doesn’t keep his word?

What do you think will happen?

Nothing.

There’s one political party in American politics that keeps pushing for more restrictions on abortions, IVF, contraception, and penalties against women who want to travel to get whatever services they, individually, feel they need — and that party keeps winning elections.

Barry Friedman is an essayist, political columnist, petroleum geology reporter — quit laughing — and comedian living in Tulsa, Okla. His latest book, “Jack Sh*t, Volume 2: Wait For The Movie. It’s In Color” is the follow-up to “Jack Sh*t: Volume One: Voluptuous Bagels and other Concerns of Jack Friedman.” He is also author of “Road Comic,” “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Four Days and a Year Later,” “The Joke Was On Me,” and a novel, “Jacob Fishman’s Marriages.” See barrysfriedman.com and friedmanoftheplains.com.

From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2025

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