Last year, the members of Liberty and Prosperity asked Seth Grossman to prepare a paper proposing a strategy to win majority voter approval for pro-life candidates who oppose abortions. Grossman shared this essay with Liberty and Prosperity members last January. Do you agree or disagree? Let’s talk about it at our weekly breakfasts every Saturday at 9:30 AM at Sal’s Coal Fired Pizza Banquet Room, 501 New Road, Somers Point, NJ 08244.
Pro-life conservatives are in a Catch-22. We want laws to protect the unborn. However, we can’t get them because politicians who support such laws can’t win elections. Ann Coulter explained that last year in her opinion column “The New Baby-Killers”. Click Here For Link: THE NEW BABY-KILLERS – Ann Coulter
Since the Supreme Court overruled Roe vs. Wade in 2022, voters have decisively rejected every candidate who supported any new restrictions on abortions.
In 2022, Republican Tudor Dixon ran for Governor of Michigan against Gretchen Whitmer, a very unpopular Democrat. Dixon publicly opposed all abortions except to save the life of the mother. She lost by 11 points.
Republican Doug Mastriano ran for Governor of Pennsylvania that same year. He promised to enact a six-week abortion ban. Mastriano lost by 15 points and took Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz down with him.
During the past four years, voters consistently voted against abortion restrictions in ballot initiatives. In 2022, Montana voters rejected a proposal merely to require doctors to give life-saving treatment to babies born alive after a botched abortion. In 2020 and in 2023, voters in Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio rejected ballot initiatives that would have given state legislators power to restrict abortions.
In 2022, voters in Michigan, Vermont and California amended their state constitutions to guarantee abortion rights.
During March of 2023, President Trump was already leading Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Florida Governor Ron DeSantis 54% to 26% in national polls. However, DeSantis support declined further after he pushed through a new six week abortion law in Florida.
To protect the unborn, conservatives and Republicans must quickly adopt new strategies and tactics. Here are three simple suggestions:
- Immediately announce that we strenuously oppose all national restrictions on abortion. New Jersey Republican Congressman Chris Smith and Republican Senators Lindsay Graham and Tim Scott did nothing but energize Democrats and demoralize Republicans when they publicly proposed them. In Dobbs, the Supreme Court gave strong legal reasons for having the people of each state make their own laws on abortions. There are also strong political reasons to do that as well.
- Re-brand the pro-life movement as a women’s movement. Democrats have cleverly convinced most women that a “Handmaiden’s Tale” patriarchy of men oppose abortion because they want to control women. However, in most real life situations, women want to have their babies, while men want abortions to avoid paying child support. The most articulate and energetic leaders of the pro-life movement are women who had abortions and regretted them. This inconvenient truth must be publicized.
- Demand small, limited measures to protect the unborn without alienating and threatening the freedom of large groups of voters. I believe most voters already support efforts to require women considering abortions to first view ultrasounds of their unborn babies. I believe most voters would also support the rights of doctors and nurses who refuse to perform abortions except the save the life of the mother. There may also be support for ending taxpayer support of abortion advocacy organizations like Planned Parenthood. Many might even support ending government funding or mandatory insurance coverage for abortions.
This approach is slow and frustrating to everyone appalled by the 22,000 abortions performed in New Jersey last year?
But are there any options? In a democracy, you cannot adopt or enforce laws without the support and consent of most citizens. Abortion laws cannot be changed without first changing the culture.
Democrats learned this years ago when their candidates opposed the death penalty and supported gay marriage. After losing countless elections, Democrats worked relentlessly to change the culture. They publicized rare hardship cases. They injected their messages into popular songs, movies and TV programs. When Democrats finally won majority support for their issues, they ran political campaigns to change the laws.
If pro-life conservatives truly want to protect the unborn, we must change the culture in the same slow way. Winning the legal battle to overturn Roe v. Wade only got us to the starting line.
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