Greetings. I am a voting constituent in rural west Texas.
I know y’all think input from someone who doesn’t think according to a pre-written constituent response has little value. So I’m here solely to remind you of the reality that is American public opinion.
Abortion. Taking away a woman’s right. Causing harm to half the population and thinking of the great damage done only in terms of your personal politics.
This health care issue is about people, not politics. That y’all continue to struggle with this basic truth is the GOP great failing and continued blind spot. Or willful ignorance.
There’s an assumption that public outrage in response to attacks on reproductive rights and services is some kind of passing fad.
For example: 2024 GOP presidential candidate & former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told NBC News last week, that abortion is “going to have a political impact, but it’ll settle as time goes on.” He added, “So I don’t see [abortion] as an issue that’s going to hurt us long term.”
With a smile on his face.
Nearly a year ago, as Republican-appointed U.S. Supreme Court justices prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade, Democrats were confident that the ruling would spark a backlash from voters, but GOP officials heard the predictions — and scoffed.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told NPR that he expected voters’ interests to lie elsewhere. A day earlier, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said something similar, telling The Wall Street Journal, “I just don’t think this is going to be the big political issue everybody thinks it is.”
Funny. Recent election results show that those assumptions were deluded, but that’s not the only evidence. NBC News reported over the weekend on the results of its latest poll that asked respondents to rate the importance of abortion as an issue on a scale of 1 to 10.
A combined 61% of Americans gave it an 8 or higher. A 43% plurality ranked it as a 10.
This does not appear to be an issue that’s likely to “settle as time goes on.”
And yet…just this month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban into law; Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed a measure explicitly restricting some out-of-state travel for abortions; and Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird thought it’d be a good idea to pause its practice of paying for emergency contraception for victims of sexual assault.
The alternate reality y’all seem to operate in is disturbing. And it is not the reality of America.
