The GOP's Extreme Position on Abortion Further Alienates Women, Educated, & Younger Voters

Republicans are close to getting their most fervent desire. America's very conservative and increasingly activist Supreme Court signaled this week in the Texas "vigilante" case that it's preparing to issue a ruling in the coming months that will give red and some purple states significantly more power to restrict women's access to abortions, if not to ban the procedure outright. That ruling, in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is expected by June, and it's widely believed that the Court will uphold Mississippi's law that bans almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Court could use the Dobbs case to overrule Roe v Wade, but it's more likely that they will use it to begin the process of slowly dismantling that landmark precedent. GOP controlled state legislatures will then craft laws making it virtually impossible to obtain safe, legal abortions within their borders.

The GOP's increasing hostility toward abortion rights is meant to appeal to their older, white, rural, evangelical base, but recent polling shows that it may further alienate women, highly educated individuals, and younger voters.

A recent NBC poll found that 54% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and 42% think that it should be illegal in all or most cases. That's quite a change from 2003 when those numbers were essentially reversed [44% legal, 54% illegal].

The demographic breakdown of those numbers shows that the issue aligns very closely to the voting patterns for these groups over the last 15-20 years, with pro-choice Americans generally supporting Democrats and abortion opponents voting Republican.

Age:

• 18-34: 65% legal, 32% illegal

• 65+: 48% - 49%

Gender:

• Men: 49% - 47%

• Women: 59% - 38%

Education:

• Whites with college: 60% - 37%

• Whites without college: 46% - 50%

Pop. Density

• Urban: 65% - 34%

• Suburban: 54% - 42%

• Rural: 33% - 63%

Region:

• Northeast: 65% - 34%

• Midwest: 49% - 48%

• South: 43% - 52%

• West: 65% - 31%

Religion:

• Evangelicals: 26% - 70%

• Non-evangelicals: 65% - 32%

With abortion rights now threatened in many states, it will be interesting to see if it becomes a more prominent issue in Virginia's Gubernatorial race and the mid-term elections across the nation in 2022.

#news #politics #abortion

By: Don Lam & Curated Content