The White House is becoming increasingly involved in the abortion fight before the Supreme Court rules on a Mississippi case that could upend Roe v. Wade despite drawing attention to its limited power to help.
The move comes as abortion shapes up to be a prominent wedge issue in the 2022 midterm elections for both Democrats and Republicans.
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Planned Parenthood Action Fund spokesman Sam Lau framed the 2022 midterm cycle as a “turning point for reproductive freedom” as his organization prepares for its “largest-ever midterm electoral program” to boost pro-abortion rights candidates, from governors to state lawmakers.
“Months before the election, this country will likely experience a game-changing Supreme Court decision, where people across the country will experience in real-time the extremity of the courts and the anti-abortion movement,” he told the Washington Examiner. “We believe the anger and outrage this provokes will drive historic turnout and cause a realignment at the voting booth.”
But anti-abortion activists are as motivated, invigorated in part by 2021 Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe’s unsuccessful attempt to weaponize the issue against now-Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin through an almost $4 million TV ad campaign.
The Susan B. Anthony List aims to speak with 8 million battleground state voters during the 2022 cycle, knocking on at least 4 million doors, according to spokeswoman Mallory Carroll.
“We’re talking to pro-life people who don’t always go vote in a midterm election as well as people who we believe can be persuaded on the life issue,” she said. “Pro-abortion Democrats’ support for abortion on demand — up until birth, without limits, paid for by taxpayers — is vastly out of step with mainstream America and is a turnoff for persuadable voters.”
For Mary Ziegler, a Florida State University law professor and author of Abortion and the Law in America, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is “the most significant development on the issue in half a century.”
After many pro-abortion rights activists commemorated the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that established pregnant women have a constitutional right to choose to have an abortion, the Supreme Court will decide whether to uphold Mississippi’s 2018 15-week pre-fetal viability cutoff. Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is just one local leader bracing for Roe’s demise, challenging her state’s abortion policies last week.
“Politicians can’t easily fall back on familiar talking points about abortion,” Ziegler said. “Now lawmakers in red states will move toward policies that will actually be enforced, while progressive lawmakers are working to preserve the status quo or create a sanctuary for people seeking abortion from out of state.”
“How central the abortion issue will be to voters is unpredictable, but it seems [safe] to assume that it will be more of a wedge issue than it has in years,” Ziegler added.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki shared a sharp statement regarding Oklahoma’s anti-abortion measure this week. Psaki described its narrow exception for medical emergencies, excluding rape and incest, as “the country’s most restrictive legislation.” She issued a similar comment last month concerning Idaho’s Texas-like, private citizen-buttressed six-week prohibition.
“Make no mistake: The actions today in Oklahoma are a part of [a] disturbing national trend attacking women’s rights, and the Biden administration will continue to stand with women in Oklahoma and across the country in the fight to defend their freedom to make their own choices about their futures,” she said this week.
Psaki repeated President Joe Biden’s call for Congress to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would codify Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey — and go further still. Senate Republicans blocked the House-cleared bill last month, half a year after Abbott approved Texas’s SB 8. At the time, Psaki admitted the Senate filibuster was “extremely disappointing, disproportionately impacting lower socioeconomic, minority, and rural people.”
The Senate’s evenly divided composition is amplifying abortion as an election issue, in addition to Dobbs.
Amid speculation that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was retiring, Psaki was asked what the White House could do to secure abortion access. She had previously promoted Biden’s repeal of the global gag rule, which prevents U.S.-funded foreign nongovernmental organizations from offering or performing abortions and investing in the Title X Family Planning Program.
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“We’ve also taken steps and have announced steps, in recent days even, for HHS to amp up their support for providers across the country,” she said in January of the Department of Health and Human Services. “That’s something we will continue to look for ways to do.”
