#arkansass

Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day:

It can’t be easy for a Republican to read abortion polls these days. I imagine their stomach drops every time a new one comes out. Because while support for abortion rights has always been strong, now it’s downright astronomical: Americans overwhelmingly want abortion to be legal for any reason and available at any point in pregnancy. Even as the GOP tries to grasp onto the hope that voters still want some kind of restriction, more polls arise to burst that bubble—showing that over 80% of Americans don’t want the government to be involved at all. You’d think that when faced with this stark political reality, Republicans might consider changing their abortion policies to be more in line with what the country wants. We know stories of raped children and women going septic don’t move them, but if anything could bring a tear to the GOP’s eye it’s lost elections. Instead, Republicans made a political calculation anyone could have seen coming: they’re trying to stop Americans from voting on abortion. After all, it doesn’t matter what the polls say if voters don’t have a choice to begin with.

[...] These kinds of attacks on democracy are happening across the country. Conservative lawmakers and activists have opened up a Pandora’s box of dirty tricks in every state where abortion is on or heading towards the ballot. [...]

When tricking voters doesn’t work, anti-abortion activists are turning to intimidation. In Montana, pro-choice petitioners report being followed around and videotaped, a tactic meant to scare off anyone considering signing in support. A Florida anti-abortion group launched a website urging people to “report the precise locations” of pro-choice petitioners so that their activists could rush down to harass them. And in Arkansas, 79 signature-gatherers were just doxxed by an anti-abortion group who published their names and cities of residence. Since then, organizers say, the harassment and threats have escalated—with people telling petitioners, “I'’m going to find you and kill you.” Remember, these are just the petitions to get abortion on the ballot; they’re not even campaigning for the amendments themselves yet. While abortion rights supporters across the country are having their lives threatened, Republican politicians are insisting that they’ve ‘softened’ on abortion.

The GOP knows that they can’t stop every election or suppress every voter, and they certainly can’t change those pesky polls. So instead of taking post-Roe victory laps, Republican candidates are quietly removing language about their ‘pro-life’ bonafides from their campaign websites. And rather than standing firmly behind the policies they fought for decades to enact, the GOP is talking about exceptions, ‘compassion’, and—most infuriatingly—supporting “the will of the people.” Republicans have used that phrase dozens of times over the last few months in a transparent attempt to paint unpopular abortion bans as something voters support. “The will of the people” has shown up everywhere from Donald Trump’s abortion talking points and interviews with anti-abortion leaders to Eagle Forum legal briefs. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds even dropped it last month when responding to the news that the state Supreme Court would allow a 6-week abortion ban to go into effect. Over 60% of Iowa voters want abortion to be legal.