The GOP's Panicked Messaging
They say abortion bans are "the will of the people"
You don’t need to be a political genius to know that Republicans are straight up shitting themselves right now. The Arizona Supreme Court ruling in favor of an 1864 ban was a tipping point across the country, and the GOP—in every state, at every level—knows that voters are furious.
It’s not just the nightmare stories of raped children being denied care and women going septic that put voters over the edge, but the disdain for women that seeps out of every anti-abortion decision. At the same time Arizona Republicans are enacting a law from before women had the right to vote, anti-abortion groups and Idaho Republicans are headed to the Supreme Court to argue that states shouldn’t have to give women life-saving abortions. How much clearer can they get?
All of which is to say: strategists have their work cut out for them. How can they convince voters ahead of November that the anti-abortion horror show they’ve unleashed on Americans is good, actually?
If anyone has an answer, it’s Kellyanne Conway. The Republican strategist and all-around terrible person has been doing damage control in the wake of the Arizona ruling, pushing out talking points at record speed. And the messages she’s focusing on paint a clear picture of what we can expect to see from GOP candidates—including Donald Trump—over the next few months.
In a recent appearance on Fox News, for example, Conway stuck to some of her old standards—namely, attacking Democrats as the real extremists. She honed in on ballot measures, specifically, saying that abortion rights activists are trying to pass amendments that are “more permissive than pre-Dobbs.”
Of course, this is demonstrably false. It’s also one of the reasons I don’t love ‘viability’ language in proposed amendments—in addition to the fact that it’s just another restriction, Republicans will claim we’re pushing for abortion ‘up until birth’ regardless.
Conway also repeated some of our favorite anti-abortion bingo words like “compassion,” and “federal minimum standard” in lieu of ‘ban’—but it was something she said about states’ rights that piqued my interest.
“What is state’s rights? Is it when the state Supreme Court speaks? Is it through a ballot initiative? Is it through the governor and the state legislature working together? Is it through the trigger laws that have been on the books? I can argue that it’s all of the above.”
Over the last few months—especially as pro-choice ballot measures have advanced in multiple states—I’ve noticed Republicans tinkering with the definition of states’ rights and the ‘will of the people.’ Essentially, they know that they’re passing abortion bans against voters’ wishes, so they need to make it sound as if these laws are something Americans actually want. (That’s why they say ‘consensus’ instead of ‘ban.’)
This week, for example, Fox News ran a headline about the EMTALA case headed to the Supreme Court, stating that the Biden administration is “subverting state’s rights” by requiring hospitals to give women life-saving and stabilizing abortions. John Bursch, an attorney from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the radical legal group arguing the case, told Fox News, “It’s pushing abortion on states that don't want it.”
It takes a lot of nerve to pass abortion bans no one wants, only to then accuse pro-choice politicians of disregarding voters’ wishes! But that’s the message I’m seeing come up again and again among Republican legislators, anti-abortion activists and conservative media.
Specifically, they’re trying to argue that direct democracy and ballot measures don’t represent what states want or the “will of the people”—but that Republican legislators do. Even when they’re not talking about ballot measures, it’s a term conservative operatives are using often.
In an ADF release about the EMTALA case, for example, the anti-abortion organization accuses of the federal government of trying to “override the will of Idaho voters enacted through their elected representatives.” And check out this quote from Stephen Billy, vice president of state affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, talking how Republicans in Congress killed a pro-choice bill:
“Congress's opposition to that comes from the will of the people who sent the elected representatives to D.C., and they have very little national support when you look at the polling for the extreme position of the Women's Health Protection Act.”
There’s “will of the people” again! Think that’s a coincidence? In an interview with The New York Times, SBA Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser said the term six different times. Incredibly, she used it in reference to Ron DeSantis signing a 6-week abortion ban (which even most Florida Republicans oppose) and a federal 15 week ban (which is just as unpopular as a 6-week ban).
And when anti-abortion groups wanted to repeal Ohio’s Issue 1—the ballot measure that enshrined abortion rights in the state’s constitution—they did it by claiming it wasn’t what Ohioans really wanted, even though they voted for it. A legal brief from organizations incuding Dayton Right to Life and the Eagle Forum argued that “the will of the voters” is “a myth”:
“Legislators represent the ‘will of the people’ as much as or more than any ballot initiative does, and there should be deference to legislators in filling in the gaps or ambiguities in a ballot initiative.”
It’s no secret why anti-abortion lawmakers and activists are so eager to define the “will of the people” this way. Every time abortion rights is put directly to voters, abortion rights wins. It’s much better for Republicans to focus on elected representatives as the true voice of voters—especially as they gerrymander states to hell and back and engage in voter suppression and disenfranchisement. Anything to pretend as if these bans are something Americans want.
As frustrating and infuriating as all of this, it’s also telling. As always, the GOP’s talking points are 99% projection; they’re highlighting what they’re most afraid of. So let’s double down on exactly that: remind your friends, families and communities just how popular abortion rights are, and how Republicans are passing bans against the wishes of voters. Let’s get Democrats to do the same. Abortion isn’t just a health and human rights issue—it’s a democracy issue. And Republicans would rather dismantle democracy than let women control their own lives.
if they want the "will of the people" - let women decide for themselves whether or not they want an abortion. Leave the state and federal governments out of it.
The media also needs to also explain that approx. half the states don’t even allow for voter led ninitiatives