It’s much easier to convince people to vote against something than for something. Abortion is no exception to this rule, which helps explain why pro-life referenda and candidates throughout the country are losing steam in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
In Kansas, for example, voters declined this month to approve an amendment to the state constitution that would have permitted the legislature to pass restrictions on abortion. This outcome was a bit unexpected since the polling in Kansas (and the rest of the country, for that matter) shows at least half of voters, if not more, support restricting the procedure. So why did they vote against an amendment that would have allowed them to do just that?
One reason is that Democrats and pro-choice advocates have the advantage of being able to mobilize voters against something, whereas the pro-life movement is stuck with the difficult task of educating the public on pro-life policies and why they’re worth supporting.
For the past several decades, the roles were reversed. Pro-lifers rallied against the unrestricted abortion regime of Roe v. Wade. Abortion rights advocates had to convince the courts and the public that the decision, which prevented states and their constituents from weighing in on the abortion debate, was worth preserving. This context is crucial to understanding the present political landscape. The pro-life movement doesn’t have the strategic and electoral advantage it had before Dobbs; that advantage now belongs to abortion rights advocates. And if we do not shift our policy and messaging strategies to reflect this reality, we will continue to lose as we did in Kansas.
With that in mind, I want to talk about Blake Masters, the Arizona GOP Senate candidate who has come under fire from both pro-abortion and pro-life proponents for stealth-editing his campaign website’s abortion position to make it seem more centrist. A number of pro-lifers have argued Masters has gone squishy and that he has sacrificed his pro-life goals on the altar of electability by only committing to a ban on third-trimester and partial-birth abortions.
To be clear, I don’t think Masters’s position has changed at all. He has voiced support for a federal law defining personhood but has never said that law should be used for a blanket ban on abortion. And his campaign has insisted that a previous statement describing himself as “100% pro-life” is still true.
Nevertheless, Masters’s rhetoric on this topic has mellowed out since winning his primary election. But (and I say this as someone who proudly supports a national ban on abortion with few exceptions) that’s not a bad thing. Rather, it is a recognition by Masters that the abortion debate is different now than it was a couple of months ago and that, to win it, he’ll also need to approach it differently.
Far from abandoning the pro-life movement, Masters is showing pro-life Republicans how they can reclaim the political advantage they lost with Dobbs. Take, for example, his recent ad against his opponent, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ). Instead of trying to rally voters in support of basic abortion restrictions, Masters encourages them to rally against a candidate whose position on abortion is more extreme than much of the Western world’s. In fact, the only countries that support a “no-limits” position on abortion are China and North Korea, Masters points out.
https://twitter.com/bgmasters/status/1562813594588176388?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
If the pro-life movement hopes to advance its cause and pass laws to protect life, it must first win elections. This isn’t a simple task, as Kansas proved. But it will be easier if we take back the edge and force the pro-choice movement to play defense. Make them defend their position supporting abortion on-demand for all nine months. Force them to convince voters, the vast majority of whom support restricting abortion, why it should be available to anyone at any stage of pregnancy for any reason. Let’s rally voters against that.
And let’s also recognize that this fight is going to play out differently in every state. A Republican candidate running in Texas or Idaho will have more leeway than Masters does in Arizona — and that’s OK, so long as we are all fighting toward the eventual goal of abolition. Besides, even a marginally pro-life Republican is far, far better than a pro-choice Democrat.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t hold Republicans accountable if they fail to follow through on their commitment to the pro-life movement. But I fear we’re beginning to fall into the trap that many of us warned about when Roe fell — the litmus test, the inclination to judge someone in the ranks as being insufficiently pro-life because they haven’t committed to this or that policy. This is an urge we must resist. The only standard that matters is whether someone agrees that abortion is the taking of an unborn life. Everything else is secondary.
