Thanks to the FL Supreme Court, one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation will go into full effect in 30 days. At the same time, the Court allowed a state constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights to appear on the ballot in November.
Florida has made a hard right turn the last couple of election cycles, but this is the kind of thing that could shake up the Presidential and Senate races in the state – if Florida Democrats aren’t too much of a shambles to capitalize off it. Six week bans poll terribly. Abortion rights amendments have proven popular even in deeply red states and could bring a surge of Democrats to the polls. But on the downside, it’s a bunch of nobodies in the Democratic Senate primary. I guess we’ll see how far gone Florida really is.
With as gerrymandered as Florida has become, DeFuhrer and his cronies are likely going to look for any way they can to suppress the vote this November and/or water down the referenda if they still manage to pass.
One impact of abortion bans spreading across the South is that they have more potential to impact middle class voters. A ban in one state wasn’t too big a deal if a daughter in a middle-class family “got in trouble” because you could just send her across the state line (an option notably less accessible to poor people). But now with nearly all southern states adopting bans, a Floridian seeking an abortion may need to travel nearly 1,000 miles to obtain one legally. And the surge in demand for abortion services by women fleeing abortion-banning states means that clinics will be increasingly backlogged.
It was easy for suburban GOP voters to support abortion bans when they had an out should they need it. Now, at the very least, they’ll have to up the cognitive dissonance between their support for such bans and the reality that their college dreams for little McKenzie just got derailed by an unplanned pregnancy.
I read the title of this thread and the 1st thing that crossed my mind was, “Great, I love it when the opposition keeps shooting themselves in the foot. Over and over again.”
The second, definitely. They don’t want to win elections. They want to take power undemocratically, because to their mind, it doesn’t count as power unless it’s inflicted on the unwilling. When Republicans talk about “strong leaders”, this is what they mean.
Which, I suspect, they just gave a much better chance of passing.
Whether that was their intention I have no idea. Kind of hard on anybody who needs an abortion between now and then, in any case.
And/or their recollection of that non-viable pregnancy, or major health condition, they or a loved one had which was discovered well after week 6. Or after week 15, for that matter. Or their fear of that happening in the future.
I recall in 2004, when the republicans got a bunch of “marriage is between a man and a woman” issues on state ballots to drive out the evangelical vote. And it worked: Bush won re-election.
This issue is almost certainly going to have the same effect with pro-choice voters. They are going to be highly motivated to show up to the polls.
Voter turnout is always a big variable in elections. I’m willing to even go so far as to say that Florida might be in play this year.
Many years ago I sought an abortion as soon as I found out I was pregnant, which was around 6 weeks gestation IIRC. Made an appointment for a termination at the local clinic, but an appointment couldn’t be made for another 4 weeks. When I voiced my concern to the staff about the time delay, they informed me that it was SAFER (medically speaking) to have a termination between 8-10 weeks than at 6 weeks. Being young and pre-internet days, I had no reason to doubt that information.
Yet I wonder now, is it indeed safer to have a slightly later termination? Or were the staff just trying to put me at ease with the delay?
This is a gift for Democrats. My two cents: there are maybe 20% of the population that is strongly opposed to abortion, but that 20% votes solely on this issue. After Roe and before Dobbs, Republicans knew that paying lip service to being anti-abortion got them some easy votes. Once you have 20% of the vote locked up, you only need to can lose the other 80% by a 30-50 margin and still get to 50%. After all these decades, it’s muscle memory for Republicans. They can’t afford to offend the die hard 20% of the people. So they’re stuck being against abortion even if they personally don’t give two shits about it. I don’t think guys like McConnell care that much about it, but he’s willing to pay lip service to the cause in order to get judges that benefit his heavy donors (and himself). Even DJT doesn’t give a fuck about it, if you had told him there was an abortion bill on his desk he’d say he already paid it.
Now that the GOP has gone batshit extreme on ending abortion, it’s a golden opportunity for Democrats. Suddenly Democrats have a single issue. This could definitely put Florida in play as well as NC and likely even Ohio. If the media would stop its fascination with the border and focus on this, there could be a blue tsunami.
Republicans haven’t “gone batshit extreme”; making abortion illegal has been a central part of their campaigns for decades. The only difference is that there is no longer a Supreme Court ruling stopping them.
I think that Dobbs has been like blood in the water and now they’re in a feeding frenzy. Look at the rush of post-Dobbs extreme anti-abortion legislation. After getting partial victory, now they’re pushing for the final solution.
Well, I agree with the characterization of batshit extreme. It is all well and good to demand something when you believe you have no chance of getting it. Now that they are able to enact sweeping bans, to do something that a huge percentage of their own supporters disagree with, IMO arguably qualifies as. BSI.