Wait — Are Abortion Bans Unpopular?

Seems like they are!

It’s been a pretty big week for abortion rights, what with the Ohio vote and all. Turns out that even when Republicans are really, really sneaky about it, even in states like Ohio, people will come out and vote for abortion rights. Which is exactly why the GOP is doing everything they can to prevent those votes.

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But Arizona’s Gonna Get One! (Probably!)

Right now, the state of Arizona has not one, but two abortion bans. The first, A.R.S § 13-3603, is what was in effect in 1973 when Roe was decided. That law bans all abortions and sentences those who obtain or perform one to two to five years in prison. Then there’s Senate Bill 1164, which passed in March of 2022, just ahead of the Dobbs decision. Arizonans, as it turns out, want neither of them.

Thankfully, a coalition of abortion rights groups called Arizona for Abortion Access launched a campaign this week to get enough votes to put abortion on the ballot — with the hope of enshrining it as a right in the state constitution, as so many other states have been doing.

The group needs to get 384,000 signatures by July of next year in order to put the initiative on the November 2024 ballot. Given how very not into the abortion ban Arizonans are and the incredible turnout that other abortion votes have resulted in, getting this on the ballot in November could be a huge boon for Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.

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Idaho Professors Don’t Want To Go To Prison For Discussing Abortion

A group of Idaho college professors, along with two teachers’ unions are suing the state over the “No Public Funds For Abortion Act,” which they say is making it impossible for them to address the subject of abortion in their classrooms.

In addition to barring those who receive healthcare from the state government from having their abortions covered, the law also prevents healthcare workers at public colleges from discussing abortion options with students. The professors are concerned that, because the law is so vague, it may also apply to in-class discussions on the subject — and that fear has already had an impact.

Via ABC:

The educators say the law is vague and doesn’t define exactly what it means to promote or counsel in favor of abortion. As a result, one philosophy professor cut an entire module on human reproduction from her biomedical ethics course because she fears prosecution, the lawsuit states.

Others have significantly altered their course content in a variety of subjects like sociology, law, human reproduction and women in media by pulling reading materials, curtailing lectures and declining to give meaningful feedback on some student research and writing.

Earlier this year, Lewis-Clark State College officials censored several works of art from an exhibit at the school that focused on health care issues. The artists were told that the works were removed from the show because administrators feared they would run afoul of the new law.

The plaintiffs are asking a federal judge to declare the law unconstitutional, at least as it applies to them.

A spokesperson for the Idaho Family Policy Center, a conservative group that supports the Act, called the lawsuit baseless.

“The ‘No Public Funds For Abortion Act’ simply does not infringe on academic speech protected by the First Amendment, including classroom discussion on the topics related to abortion,” he said. Of course, if it already does not infringe upon that, there should be no issue with putting that in writing, right?

Republicans Starting To Figure Out That Their Abortion Policies May Not Be All That Popular

In an interview this week with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker noticed that, as if by magic, people are more than happy to vote for anti-abortion Republicans but less happy to vote to make abortion illegal.

Via The Hill:

“Mike DeWine signed some of the most pro-life laws in the nation, and he won in Ohio last fall by 25 points; One million more votes were cast for him than the Democrat running on a very pro-abortion position.

“What that tells me is that if Republicans are just focused on one issue, they are going to have a bit of a challenge,” Walker said.

“If you do [what], not just DeWine, but Kim Reynolds, Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, all these other pro-life governors did and run on a full-scale agenda, I think you have a shot,” he said.

At the same time, Walker acknowledged that single referendums on abortion are going to be tough for Republicans to win.

“At least in swing states … the money’s not on the side of the pro-life position,” Walker claimed. “There’s not a financial interest for this; it’s a moral issue, but it’s not a financial issue.”

There’s not an interest in it, period. Republicans have an easier time winning elections for two reasons. One is gerrymandering. The other is that, on an issue-by-issue basis, Americans actually tend to lean left. When it’s broken down to the individual issues “Do you want abortion to be legal or not?” or “Should we have gun control?” or “Do you like government programs like social security, Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA?” or “Do you want a single payer healthcare system?” or “Do you support criminal justice reform?” or even “Should sex work be decriminalized?,” and so on and so on, the left-wing position wins almost every time.

However, when it comes to voting for candidates, people who may support those policies may vote Republican simply because they dislike Democrats and like how Republicans tell them how wonderful they are.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine was disappointed in the results of the Issue 1 vote, largely because he had previously asked the state legislature to come up with a less radical abortion ban so that people wouldn’t be so motivated to come out and vote for abortion rights. They refused, and now there’s no time. That being said, it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, because people want to be able to have abortions.

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Male Workers Feeling Huffy Over Abortion Benefits

A study published this week found that a lot of men were not very happy when their companies offered, in the wake of Dobbs, to help their employees get abortions regardless of where they are located.

On the whole, companies that offered this benefit received an increase in applications to job postings, particularly in female-dominated industries, but men who worked at these companies were often more likely to be mad at senior management about it. As a result … they got paid more?

Via Fortune:

But that message also generated a backlash: poor reviews from a small group of male workers. Companies that had announced support for abortion care saw an 8% drop in reviews of senior management, compared with companies that stayed silent. The effect was concentrated in male-dominated jobs, such as software engineers, and in high-paying fields.

Companies sought to compensate for this by actually raising pay an average of 4% where management ratings had declined, with firms that saw the biggest attitude problems raising pay the most, Indeed found. 

Why the poor rating from male workers? Indeed cites a list of possible reasons, including “cultural beliefs, political views or preferences for businesses not to take a political stance.”

So they acted like whiny babies and got rewarded for it. How nice for them!

Now, sure, this could be because women and others who can get pregnant are getting a benefit that they are not getting — but it could also be the fact that legal abortion is one of the main factors in women being able to participate in the workforce and these cafones don’t want the competition.