The single issue most likely to get Americans to the ballot box this November is not gun violence or inflation — it’s the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v Wade, new polling shows.
More than half of voters polled by The Wall Street Journal said the loss of their federal constitutional right to an abortion has made them more likely to vote in the upcoming midterm elections. The court ruling trumped inflation, border security, gun violence and the FBI search of former president Donald Trump’s home.
Of the 75 million women of reproductive age in America, nearly 30 million have limited or no access to abortion as 17 states have now banned, severely restricted or stopped abortion access since the court decision, the Guttmacher Institute estimates.
Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who conducted the poll with Democrat John Anzalone, told the publication that prior to the ruling, Republicans had been “cruising” while Democrats were having a hard time.
“It’s almost like the abortion issue came along and was kind of like a defibrillator to Democrats,” he said.
Fabrizio said the polling showed women in some groups, including Hispanic voters and independents, had moved toward the Democratic Party.
The number of people who said abortion should be legal in all or most cases was up five percentage points from March to 60%.
The New York Times last month reported Republican candidates are now having to acknowledge abortion access has become a central election issue, shifting their talk on abortion bans or avoiding getting into the details altogether.
Last week, Detroit News reported that a Republican nominee for Michigan’s 7th Congressional district up against a pro-choice Democrat deleted the section of his website detailing his involvement in the “pro-life” movement and commitment to “protecting the unborn”.
The WSJ poll surveyed 1313 registered voters in mid-August.
Wouldn’t it be lovely if the overturning of Roe vs Wade by the Republican stacked Supreme Court was the beginning of the death of the Republicans?
Women are finally working out that control freak men are withdrawing abortion rights as part of the ongoing war against women. Control freak men have always known that if you want to stop your woman from running away from you the load her up with children. Apart from the logistical and financial dependancy each new child creates they acts as convenient hostages so they control their partners by adding threats against the kids to the usual mix of a violence against the woman herself.
They are getting angry now that this has become state policy. Rightly so.
Unfortunately many women are theirs sisters’ worst enemies.
Were that not true patriarchy would never have arisen in the first place.
Since the rise of the western welfare state there is no sane reason for the tired old argument about needing a male to support the children yet so many remain as subservient as if it were true.
The pets of the patriarchy are indeed the enablers which was dealt with so well in Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaids Tale”.
Twas e’er the case – ♪♪”She’s Just a Bird in a Gilded Cage♪♪♪ an old, ca 1899, song.
Haven’t read it lately but one problem with slavery is the inequitable distribution of lethal weapons.
That’s a joke. First, blame the underdog. Then try bringing up a couple of kids on welfare. That might modify your assumptions.
Stop calling anti-choicers “pro-life”. They’re not pro-life. Pro-life means striving to improve or protect the lives of those on this earth. It means protecting children from violence and starvation. It means opposing the death penalty. It means protecting the vulnerable, the homeless. It means supporting policies such as universal healthcare. It means caring about the lives of refugees. There is nothing pro-life about being anti-abortion – it’s simply about controlling women.
You can only hope that it makes a difference. Because if it doesn’t, the Trumpists will then control the Senate, and if the rights of women and minorities are being undermined now, they will be nearly destroyed by the next election.