Democratic efforts to relax restrictions on late-term abortions in the states are re-energizing grassroots Republicans at a critical moment, as enthusiasm among Republicans wanes and concern about 2020 Democratic victories festers.
Republicans in Washington concede party morale has been moribund since the midterm elections swept Democrats to power in the House — doldrums compounded by a politically debilitating government shutdown. But they say phones have been ringing off the hook with activists clamoring to get back in the fight since New York approved legislation expanding access to third trimester abortions and similar proposals surfaced in Rhode Island and Virginia.
Democrats for several years have held the upper hand on key cultural issues such as abortion, with critical suburban female voters siding with the Democrats. But support for late-term abortion, deemed “infanticide” by many Republicans, has been historically thin. Party officials say the opportunity to go on the offensive against the Democrats is encouraging, giving them more hope about Trump’s re-election prospects.
“What the Democrats have done, is to overreach,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said, telling the Washington Examiner that the women she has talked to about this issue are horrified. “They say, wait a minute, this isn’t right. Late-term abortions — aborting a baby up to term — that’s just not right.”
In New York, the new law enacted by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo reduces the threshold for allowing an abortion in the latter stages of the third trimester, when the baby might be viable outside the womb. Rather than just making a medical diagnosis that the life of the mother is threatened, now, a threat to the mother’s health is enough.
When a similar bill was proposed in Virginia, a backlash ensued when the lead Democratic sponsor admitted during a committee hearing that an abortion would still be permitted at the point that the mother goes into labor to deliver the baby. Embattled Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam only made things worse by suggesting the bill would legalize infanticide in the event of a botched abortion, if that was the mother’s choice.
But senior Democrats aren’t backing down, contending the proposals are about protecting women’s health and are being mischaracterized by Republicans.
Since Justice Brett Kavanaugh was installed on the Supreme Court in October, abortion rights groups such as Planned Parenthood and EMILY’s List, major donors to Democratic campaigns, have worried that a conservative majority is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. As a safeguard, these activists are focused on loosening prohibitions on abortion at the state level, using the muscle Democrats gained in the midterm elections.
It’s a risky move. Democrats have always excelled politically when making the argument that abortion is a matter of woman’s health that should be “legal, safe, and rare.” The party tends to stumble when it promotes late-term abortion.
Polling from Gallup, conducted last May, showed Americans divided nearly down the middle on abortion. But when asked about support for abortion in the three trimesters of pregnancy, support for the procedure in the final three months plummeted from the first three months, dropping from 60 percent to 13 percent.
Republicans nevertheless worry that opinions of Trump might be so fixed, there is no escaping the president’s shadow, unless he turns things around on his own.
“It could be a piece of the puzzle,” said a hopeful Republican strategist based in a battleground state. “Democrats are out of the mainstream on this, and the issue could easily become an anchor. The caveat: Is Trump so negatively defined that suburban voters just won’t listen?”
