Ohio passed a state constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to an abortion, joining other red states Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana whose voters passed a pro-abortion referendum. So did the swing stake Michigan, along with blue states Colorado and Vermont.
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, seven states have put the question of whether or not to allow abortion to their voters. And every time the pro-abortion side won. Not just in progressive states, but also in conservative states.
The Supreme Court returned the issue to the states, and the states are deciding. Fourteen state legislatures have outlawed abortion. But whenever the policy is voted upon by the people, the people vote for the right to abort their children.
Democrats are exultant at their pro-abortion victories in last Tuesday’s elections, not only in Ohio but in Virginia, where Democrats took control of both houses with a pro-abortion campaign. They are now thinking that by campaigning hard on abortion they can offset President Biden’s unpopularity for a big win in 2024.
I’m not sure that strategy will work. The fact is, lots and lots of conservatives support abortion. That includes much of the libertarian wing, the so-called “barstool conservatives,” and many in the demographic with some of the highest abortion rates, the white working class. Most of these folks may be in favor of abortion, but they will also be strong supporters of Donald Trump, assuming he is the GOP presidential candidate.
A Democratic campaign centered on abortion rights might hurt Ron DeSantis, who has actually initiated pro-life laws in Florida, but they are unlikely to mean much against Trump, who has himself opposed Republicans who keep dwelling on it.
But what about the pro-life cause?
We’ve been blogging about the contemporary critics of democracy from both the left and the right. We’ve argued that this willingness to jettison liberal democracy are dangerous. But what happens when the people of a democracy vote to do something evil? Surely that is a problem with democracy. As has been said, tyranny can manifest itself in a single tyrant, but there can also be a tyranny of the majority.
Our constitution, though, tries to prevent that from happening. This is why we have not a direct democracy but a representative democracy. The founders feared mob rule. So they set up a system where the people choose representatives to govern them. They also included a Bill of Rights so that individuals and minorities would be protected from either a tyrant or a tyrannical majority. Also checks and balances from the different branches of government.
The direct democracy of the people making laws themselves by passing referendums is very populist and has its purpose. But in the present climate, pro-lifers will probably do better working through political representatives and the courts. Meanwhile, they must keep working to change hearts and minds.
Some pro-life thinkers are still optimistic, despite the recent political setbacks. See the National Review editorial Take the Long View on the Fight for Life. And Michael J. New in Pro-Life Optimism after Ohio, who talks us down with these points:
Supporters of legal abortion have now won seven straight ballot propositions. However, what has often been overlooked in the results of the 2022 and 2023 elections is that supporters of legal abortion have enjoyed precious little success changing public policy at the state level. Indeed, to this day, not one strong post-Dobbs pro-life law has been struck down by a pro-abortion ballot proposition. Furthermore, nearly all of the strong pro-life laws that are currently in place are in strong positions politically and are unlikely to be repealed via direct democracy.
Currently, laws protecting all preborn children are in place in 14 states. South Carolina and Georgia both have heartbeat laws in effect that protect the preborn after six weeks’ gestation. There are strong pro-life laws protecting thousands of preborn children in 16 states. Nine of these 16 states do not have the citizen initiative. Hence, these laws are very unlikely to be repealed by direct democracy. . . .
There are citizen initiatives in six other states that currently have strong pro-life laws in place. However, in five of these six, President Biden received less than 36 percent of the popular vote in the 2020 election. Since pro-abortion ballot propositions typically run anywhere from six to eleven points ahead of President Biden’s 2020 performance, these laws are in a fairly strong position politically. Missouri’s law protecting all preborn children is likely the most vulnerable. President Biden won over 41 percent of the vote in Missouri in 2020. However, Missouri has a long, storied history of effective pro-life activism. Supporters of legal abortion would be hard pressed to achieve a direct-democracy victory in the Show-Me State.
But if not just Biden supporters but also a significant share of Trump supporters favor abortion, those projections won’t hold up. We’ll see.
In the meantime, do you have any suggestions for how pro-lifers should go forward?
Illustration from Ohio Secretary of State
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