Why the abortion issue matters

“American Elections Are About Abortion Now,” reads the headline over a New York Times column. New York magazine puts it more bluntly: “Abortion Wins Elections.”

Every voter cares about many issues. Every election turns on many factors. Without a doubt, however, abortion gives the Democrats enormous leverage to counteract Joe Biden’s considerable weaknesses. As party strategist Tom Bonior wrote in his Times essay, “abortion could plausibly be the deciding factor next November.”

Recent elections strongly reinforce that view. In Ohio, voters overwhelmingly decided to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. In Virginia, Democrats used the abortion issue to take total control of the state legislature. In Kentucky, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear won a second term by opposing a draconian abortion ban. 

“The people aren’t with us,” laments Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican. The party’s strategy was a “complete failure,” adds Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

The abortion issue has roiled American politics ever since the Roe decision of 1973 legalized the procedure and instigated a vibrant movement under the “right-to-life” banner to reverse that ruling. But this hard-line anti-abortion faction has pulled the Republican party outside the mainstream of American opinion and made them vulnerable to the Democratic counterattack.

The Gallup organization has studied the issue over many years and concludes: “The basic contours of American public opinion on abortion remain as they’ve been for decades: The majority of U.S. adults want abortion legal, with restrictions.”

But for those decades, abortion remained an abstraction to pro-abortion rights voters. Their rights were protected, and their attitude was complacent. Then the Dobbs decision of last year, which reversed Roe and turned the abortion issue back to the states, profoundly altered their calculations. 

All issues resonate more deeply when they directly affect people’s lives — that’s why inflation has been so damaging to Biden. And for many women and their loved ones, Dobbs turned abortion from a casual concern into a tangible threat. It went from a back-burner issue to a boiling front-burner priority — and golden opportunity — overnight.

An ABC/Washington Post poll reports that 64% of Americans oppose the Dobbs decision, with 53% feeling “very strongly” about their resentment, while only 30% back the court. But those numbers don’t tell the whole story. The abortion issue carries extra weight because it contains a larger meaning. Beyond the details of law and policy, Dobbs sends a message that women are second-class citizens, that their basic rights are being demeaned and disregarded.

“Fifteen-week bans, six-week bans, people get very confused about that — people aren’t very good at math or biology, as it turns out,” Democratic pollster Celinda Lake told NPR. “People are like, ‘I don’t want to hear about all of this gobbledygook. I want to hear — do you support people’s fundamental freedom to make these health care decisions for themselves?’”

Moreover, the abortion issue gives Democrats their best chance to crystalize what’s at stake next year, to make the argument that elections have consequences, to say to disaffected voters: Whatever doubts you might have about Biden, at least he’ll appoint better judges than Trump.  

In 2016, many unhappy Democrats abandoned Hillary Clinton, voting for third-party candidates or simply staying home, and those defections helped cost her the election. In 2020, after four years of seeing the damage a Trump administration could inflict, enough of those voters returned to the Democratic fold to push Biden ahead. Today, Democratic dismay with their own standard-bearer is again a major threat, but if any issue can mobilize those doubters — especially young ones — it’s abortion. Smart Republicans like Trump understand this. He blamed the party’s poor showing last year on the “abortion issue” and called a six-week ban signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida a “terrible mistake.” But he’s caught in a bind of his own. 

He wants to soften his position in order to appeal to swing voters, but he cannot afford to alienate his hardcore base. Plus, he wants to take credit for appointing the three justices who helped form the Dobbs majority. In a supreme irony, Trump’s most lasting legacy — his judicial appointments — could turn out to be the cause of his demise.

Biden is a highly unpopular candidate, and if the election becomes a referendum on his presidency, he’s likely to lose. But if he can turn the contest into a choice between him and Trump, the Democrats stand a much better chance — and abortion is the best way for Biden to describe and define that choice.

Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. He can be contacted by email at [email protected].