Senate Republicans: Please Stop Reminding Everyone We Want To Outlaw Abortion

And more!

Jul 11, 2024

a group of people holding a sign that says elephant in the womb — Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans (unsurprisingly) blocked the Reproductive Freedom for Women Act, which would have allowed the Senate to express support for codifying Roe v. Wade into law and protecting access to reproductive health care. The vote was 49-44 in favor, far less than the 60-vote supermajority needed to kill a Republican filibuster.

Now, you would think that Republicans would be ever so grateful to Chuck Schumer for giving them the opportunity to show everyone just how much they really hate abortion, but many of them are reportedly dismissing the Act as a “political stunt” and a “show vote.”

“We call this the summer of Schumer show votes,” said Sen. John Thune (R-South Dakota). “Because every week, we come back here, we vote on a couple of noms and then we have a show vote on some issue that has no possibility of ever becoming law.”

Ah, yes, unlike earlier this year when Thune introduced “a resolution congratulating the South Dakota State University Jackrabbits on winning the 2023 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Championship Subdivision title.” That was definitely a good use of everyone’s time.

The Senate regularly votes on things that “have no possibility of ever becoming law” — at least in part to show voters where they stand and what they are doing to advance their interests. Clearly, Republicans like Thune just don’t want to have to keep reminding voters of their terrible and very unpopular positions on reproductive rights, including not just abortion but birth control and IVF.

And Speaking Of Not Wanting To Vote On Abortion!

Earlier this week, the group Arkansans for Limited Government announced that they had obtained more than enough signatures to get an abortion rights amendment on the ballot this year. Hooray!

Unfortunately, Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston has rejected their petition on the grounds that they did not submit a sworn affidavit identifying any paid canvassers by name and confirming that they were all properly trained in the fine art of signature collection.

The group, however, has issued a statement saying that they worked with Thurston and his office every step of the way and that if the paperwork they submitted was incomplete, that would be because they were not given the correct information:

We worked with the Secretary of State’s office during every step of the process to ensure that we followed all rules and regulations. At multiple junctures — including on July 5 inside of the Capitol Building — we discussed signature submission requirements with the Secretary of State’s staff. In fact, the Secretary of State’s office supplied us with the affidavit paperwork, which we used. Until today, we had no reason not to trust that the paperwork they supplied us was correct and complete. The Secretary of State, and the public, knows that we provided the state with a list of our paid canvassers and all of the required information associated with their employment. They know this because the list we provided to the Secretary of State was FOIA’d and released by our opposition in an attempt to intimidate our supporters. Asserting now that we didn’t provide required documentation regarding paid canvassers is absurd and demonstrably, undeniably incorrect.

My goodness, it sounds like the Arkansas secretary of state might have lied?

The disqualification was very exciting news for abortion rights opponents, including Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said, “Today the far left pro-abortion crowd in Arkansas showed they are both immoral and incompetent,” in a post on social media. Huckabee also quoted a post from Arkansas Rep. Ryan Rose, who shared Thurston’s letter with the commentary, “Life wins in Arkansas.”

Except it didn’t. At least not the kind of “life” they’re talking about. Winning on a technicality (an especially suspect technicality at that) isn’t winning — winning would have been if the measure was put on the ballot and defeated. Clearly, Thurston, Huckabee Sanders, and Rose do not believe it would be. Clearly, they think that a majority of Arkansans would have chosen to legalize abortion. Why? Well perhaps because …

AMERICANS LOVE ABORTION!

A poll released earlier this week found that, since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, support for abortion rights has increased — by a lot.

A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 6 in 10 Americans want their state to allow people to get abortions for any reason. Only about half believed that prior to the decision. It also found that 7 in 10 Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases and that 8 in 10 believe it should be legal in extreme cases.

It’s almost as if not having legal abortion reminded a whole lot of people of why we made it legal in the first place.

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The New York Times’ SCOTUS Guy Has Some Interesting Opinions On Abortion Opinions

In a podcast released this week, Adam Lipak, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times, seemed to think that things were going really well for abortion, Supreme Court-wise.

So the Court, in 2022, as everyone knows, overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. But in two cases this term, they effectively enhanced the availability of abortion.

Did they though? Because neither of the cases cited by Lipak “effectively” did that. In the case regarding emergency abortions in Idaho, they simply allowed a lower court’s ruling to stand until they can hear the case in full. And sure, that means that emergency abortions can continue, but who knows for how long?

The other case, regarding abortion pills in Texas, is also only temporary and was only dismissed because the quack doctors in the case — who were complaining that they might have to take care of people who take abortion pills if something goes wrong — did not have standing. It’s entirely likely that when they do find someone with standing, the decision will be very different.

Neither of these rulings is final and neither was decided in a way that had anything to do with preserving anyone’s access to reproductive rights.

There is a danger in presenting these rulings as any kind of victory, because what we don’t want is for people to become complacent or believe the threat is over, because it’s not.

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