Where a politician stands on this can make or break his/her career regardless of where s/he stands on other issues. Is this true in any other country? Any other Western country? Does the question of the legality of abortion even come up in public discourse as constantly and relentlessly as it does in the USA’s current climate?
*Not 100% sure this is the right forum. But I am asking about abortion as a polarizing political issue. *
It is entirely a political affair. It has nothing to do with babies. If men could suddenly become pregnant, abortions would be legal, fully insured and available at every Target. Old white Christian men keeping god-fearing women in their place in the voting booths.
I totally agree and could have said a lot more and posted this in The BBQ Pit. Don’t even get me started. Seriously.
***But ***my question isn’t about abortion itself. It’s about abortion as a political issue, i.e., is abortion the CENTER of any other Western country’s politics like it is here?
I believe abortion is more of a controversial topic in latin america. However I don’t know if it has the constant back and forth or political power that it does here.
It’s controversial in Norther Ireland (Where it is still, effectively, illegal in most cases), where the presiding politicians are either hard core presbyterian or Catholic, and religion is very much part of the public discourse.
Not the rest of the UK - abortion is a given, and not a topic for political debate.
Other countries is a tough one. It’d have to be one with somewhat democratic voting with only two major political parties run by an electoral college where voting districts can be gerrymandered. If a country is theocratic, it’s not even a topic, it’s a given.
I think it’s the center of elections here because of the popularity. Let’s say I run for office as a Dem, but somewhere in the Bible Belt. My campaign peeps tell me to go pro-life. I say, I’m not. They say, doesn’t matter. I say I’m pro-life, will work with churches and here come the votes I need to get elected, not votes that say I have to do what I promised. I got all the fence-sitting votes I needed for a win.
So any other country would need a lot of leeway of choice (like ours) for it to even be a main issue. And a country where candidates can openly bullshit all day. 
I’m stumped to think what country that could be.
In Spain, definitely not as much of a huge button issue as it is in the US. There are parties that you know lean more towards one side or another of the debate, there is continuous back and forth and tweaking of the laws, but it’s not a Big Issue when compared with unemployment, educational issues, linguistic issues, the economy in general, the grey economy, immigration (legal, illegal, expats, retired expats, refugees…), etc.
But I think that’s probably got a lot to do with several big differences in how politics are organized in both places:
What has made abortion so controversial the last 40-50 years is that the freedom to have one was decided by the Court. It would still be contentious if it were decided by the legislature, but it’s the idea that no matter what laws the current government wants, abortion rights remain essentially unchanged. Predictably, the states have responded to this by asserting what legislative powers they do have at the state level to the point where it has reduced the number of abortion clinics to all but just a handful in some of the more conservative states. They will continue to fight at the state level to the point where abortion becomes de facto illegal in conservative states. This is partly why I think that the SCOTUS, regardless of how conservative it may eventually become, will probably not overturn Roe v Wade entirely, but will do so piecemeal over the next 5-10 years.
Not so much in Pakistan.
Sex selective abortions, on the other hand, actual or perceived ones are generally a hot button issue.
Extremely interesting and informative post, Nava. Thank you.
Definitely not in Belgium although we had this shining example of constitutional creativity less than 30 years ago:
That was an interesting day.
There’s only one party in Norway that is obsessed with abortion, and they are currently polling at about 4%. They did however join the current governing coalition with an absolute demand for changing abortion law.
The other parties are very much saying this is not a real change, but a clarification for something that wasn’t medically possible when the law was made in the 70s, but they are using cherry picked research and going against every medical advisory group to support their choice.
Some of them are probably on board with it, abortion being a emotionally difficult topic, but they also know that the political climate in Norway is very much in support of our current laws and practice.
Oh, and the change? To ban abortions of only some of the fetuses in a multiple pregnancy. Wanting to not be pregnant at all will still be perfectly legal, and the medical science is coming down squarely on “this is safe”, so it’s all about how even Norwegian pro-choice believers can be manipulated into judge this on the squick factor.
I don’t think any other nation matches the OP, because the U.S. is the only nation where there is a close enough split that you can have such ferocious debate. In other nations, either the pro-choice side or pro-life side holds such immense power that there’s not much of a debate to be had.
The Republic of Ireland held a referendum last year on abortion, and overturned the previous ban:
It was a big deal at the time. I don’t know about now.
I was surprised to learn recently that many European countries have fairly restrictive abortion laws:
I think a big reason why abortions are such a major political topic in the United States is because it’s not really a political issue.
As far as the law is concerned, the issue was decided decades ago; the Roe decision said abortions were a legal right. That put abortions beyond the reach of legislators and executive officers.
And that freed legislators and executive officers to bring up the topic of abortions all of the time without being held accountable. Congressmen and Senators and Presidents and Governors and state legislators can take up all kinds of extreme positions on abortions without being expected to follow through on what they’re saying.
If the Roe decision didn’t exist and it actually was legal to enact laws banning abortions, politicians would have to pull back from these extreme positions. They’d have to weigh the electoral consequences of offending voters who are pro-life and voters who are pro-choice. You’d see politicians adopting much more moderate positions in an attempt to not offend anyone too much and trying to keep the subject of abortions from being raised at all.
I suspect that some pro-life politicians prefer the status quo - it is a great campaign issue. If Roe is overturned, a lot of single issue voters will stay home on Election Day.
Not an issue in Canada. Some time around 1970, a doctor was charged with having performed an abortion, then illegal. He (or his lawyer) argued medical necessity (I think it was the woman’s mental health) and he was acquitted. In Canada, you can appeal an acquittal and the crown (government prosecutor) did so. The appeal judge not only granted the appeal, but substituted guilty for not guilty. That was reversed on further appeal and the crown tried him again and the jury hung. They tried him a third time with the same result. Finally the gave up and finally they repealed the law and I have not heard anyone wanting to go back. If you cannot get a conviction, there is no point to a law. Maybe the nut in Ontario would like to change it, but criminal law in Canada is federal.
These are the very first words of El Salvador’s constitution:
My italics.
Remember, only a small fraction of voters on either side of the issue are so hard-core that abortion is their one and only issue. But those hard-core voters will turn out en masse in the party primaries to vote for people as committed as they are, and they might even stay home in the general election rather than vote for the least objectionable candidate. Politicians, understandably, are afraid of this. Ditto with taxes, LGBTQ rights, etc. Remember, the largest newspaper in New Hampshire won’t endorse a Republican who won’t take “The Pledge” on taxes.
Maybe the question question would be better framed as, “is there any other nation in the world where politicians are so afraid of single-issue voters.”
That, too.