It’s difficult not to envision the Republican mascot — the elephant — with his head in the sand, in an homage to the willfully blind ostrich, when it comes to an issue that will not disappear. Abortion — the social issue of our day — is here to stay, whether or not Republicans have effective answers for how to address it. As NBC reports, one party gets it, headlining: Abortion isn’t top of mind for voters, but Democrats are betting it could motivate their base.
Democrats are front and center with their plans to make death by abortion a mandate, while the GOP too often plays games, like a child playing hide-and-seek, unaware that everyone can still see them. Voter intensity and campaign spending are on the line. Right now, the Democrats seem to be playing their game better. And their money follows.
In early July, the ACLU announced it would be spending $25 million on “abortion and voting rights” in the midterm elections, aiming to establish what it labeled “constitutional infrastructure” to protect abortion in nine states.
Planned Parenthood rolled out a massive $47 million campaign — labeled “We Decide” — to bring abortion back into focus in this year’s elections. The nation’s largest abortion vendor is out for blood, focusing its efforts on unseating Republican congressmen who blocked its taxpayer funding last year.
Meanwhile, Reproductive Freedom for All announced a $23.5 million campaign to “mobilize voters and ‘hold anti-abortion politicians accountable.’”
Yet, while these organizations pour record amounts of money into securing so-called abortion rights, they’re missing the memo on what most Americans really want. This isn’t about a voter base determined to have abortion up to birth, but it is about organizations determined to find partners who will deliver just that, whether voters want it or not.
According to a Students for Life/SurveyUSA poll released earlier this year, fewer than 1 in 10 registered youth voters support the Democratic Party’s position on abortion. Almost 7 in 10 support laws limiting abortion.
Perhaps even more telling, a large percentage of youth abortion supporters were willing to change their views if women get help. A full 34% of those polled said they’d be more willing to accept abortion limits if the government increased its support for mothers, children, and families. And after learning more about Planned Parenthood’s malpractice (from sources no less liberal than the New York Times itself), support for the abortion vendor dropped a full 13 percentage points.
What does this mean?
Everyday abortion supporters aren’t sold on unlimited abortion. We’re not talking about the radical leftists out screaming death threats at anyone who suggests abortion could be wrong. We’re talking about the 40-year-old woman who lives on your street and has unfortunately fallen for the abortion industry’s lie that killing babies frees women, or the 20-year-old college student who has been told abortion is a lifesaving treatment, not realizing just how false that is.
Those people — the majority of the Democratic Party’s base — aren’t ready to die on the hill of abortion. But their party is.
Meanwhile, pro-lifers across the country hear little from their presumed champions.
Gubernatorial candidates in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Kansas, and New Mexico have pledged to do nothing for the least of these if elected. Way to get out the pro-life vote.
Over the last two years of the Trump administration and GOP leadership did accomplish the “Big, Beautiful Bill” that cut funding for one year to abortion vendors like Planned Parenthood. It was magnificent. And then Planned Parenthood got it back this July. Meanwhile, all the federal agency authority to address the life-and-death issue of chemical abortion pill trafficking gathers dust. That kind of lethargy can translate into voter apathy.
But don’t shoot the messenger. Students for Life Action is door knocking, running digital ad campaigns, going to churches and campaign events, and rallying voters on campus. We are committed to sending pro-life champions to Washington, D.C., and to state capitols.
We’ve been supportive of things like election integrity and rebuilding the nation’s economic strength. But that is not a replacement for being clear that children — born and preborn — matter and deserve our best.
And to be honest, when Americans are paying $5 a gallon for gas, the GOP should be looking for every way to motivate its base. There is no more motivating issue than the human rights issue of our day. Yet, Republican leaders seem not to care.
A painful juxtaposition illustrates the problem.
Democrats this month pledged that in the first 100 hours of any takeover of the House or Senate, they would aggressively pursue a radical agenda — including pushing for abortion in all nine months, taxpayer-funded. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in a court-ordered report, said that the two-year-late review of chemical abortion pills probably wouldn’t be coming until March. And the Department of Justice sits on the Comstock Act, as death-by-mail goes rogue. That’s uninspiring.
WE FOUND ABORTION DRUGS IN YOUR WATER. YOU COULD BE MICRODOSING THEM EVERY DAY
At the very least, pro-life voters and our concerns need to be welcomed into the GOP fold with the same enthusiasm that pro-abortion voters receive from the Democratic Party.
Reporters keep asking me if I will tell pro-life voters to stay home. No, I’m not doing that. I’m all in for the hope of life-saving change. But given the current state of the GOP’s lackluster outreach, don’t blame pro-life voters if the GOP doesn’t get another chance to do the right thing.
Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action, with more than 1,700 groups on middle and high school, college and university, medical and law school campuses in all 50 states. Follow her @KristanHawkins or subscribe to her podcast, The Kristan Hawkins Show.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
