OPINION:
Here we go again. Democrats are confident they will ride the rabid outrage over new abortion laws to victory in the 2022 midterms. They shouldn’t bet on it.
It is likely that Roe vs. Wade will not be overturned next year due to the Supreme Court’s pending decision on the Mississippi abortion law challenge. What is more likely to happen is that in upholding the Mississippi law, the Court will restrict the “undue burden” test established by prior precedent.
This outcome would likely render the Texas abortion law unconstitutional while forging an important legal middle ground between the Left’s abortion-on-demand culture and one that is morally and scientifically more correct. It will still save countless lives.
Unfortunately for Biden, Sanders, Pelosi, and the abortion industry, like climate change and immigration, the public takes a more nuanced view of abortion than the Left likes to admit.
According to Gallup, the country is evenly split between those who consider themselves pro-life and pro-choice, with the gap between the sides standing at a mere two points. In 1996, the spread was 23 points in favor of abortion rights.
As of May, the spread between those who believe abortion should be legal under any circumstances and those who believe there should be limits was 23 points in favor of limits.
Should the Mississippi law stand and the Texas law fall, Democrats will have a hard time scaring voters into believing that extreme views are prevailing on the issue.
Many Americans are not ready to see abortion be illegal in all circumstances, and many pro-choice voters could be convinced that some restrictions are rational. In many respects, they’re already there. Gallup’s most recent survey that broke down the issue by gestational age showed 65 and 81 percent support for making abortion illegal in the second and third trimesters, respectively.
Democrats’ belief that every woman will blindly vote to protect second and third-trimester abortions is also nonsensical in the face of higher crime rates, taxes, inflation, illegal immigration, national security concerns, and other consequences of left-wing leadership in Washington.
Republicans are notoriously bad at messaging on abortion. If the Court upholds the Mississippi law and Republicans can communicate that in today’s day in age, under certain circumstances, an unborn child deserves more rights than your average housecat, they will blunt any impact of the Democrats’ hysterical “abortion or bust” narrative.
Along with the rest of their agenda from gender fluidity to the welfare state, fidelity to their taxpayer-funded late-term abortion-on-demand hysterics will make them appear even more out of touch with the electorate. It also won’t be lost on enough moderates that the same Democrats shouting “my body, my choice” when it comes to killing the unborn are the same ones creating a cult around COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
For five decades, the Democrat Party has been built around welfare and abortion. They used to obscure that with some degree of moderate and mainstream views on a range of issues from taxes to national security, but no longer.
Republicans, however, who rightly view abortion as a moral issue, cannot be so desperate to claim a victory that they tie themselves in knots around laws that push too far, too fast.
The national disgrace of abortion has claimed more than 60 million lives and eviscerated our nation’s standing as a moral leader for the free world. Abortion itself is a perversion of freedom. However, in a Republic, major policy changes happen slowly. This sin for which we must atone will require more penance and more time.
It will happen by leaving those who cling to its wanton barbarism for political gain further on the fringes. The numbers are clear. A majority of Americans are ready for reasonable protections for the unborn.
• Tom Basile, host of Newsmax Television’s “America Right Now,” is an author and adjunct professor at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where he teaches earned media strategy.
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