As Ramesh Ponnuru noted in a post early this morning, pro-lifers in Kansas lost by a large margin last night on a ballot measure that would’ve undone a state supreme court ruling finding a right to abortion in the Kansas constitution.
Abortion supporters have been quick to cast the outcome as an indication that abortion — and, more specifically, the fact that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — will be a major factor in the Democrats’ favor in the midterms. Politico, for instance, characterized the result as “a political earthquake with the potential to reshape the entire midterm campaign.”
This appears to me to be a major misreading of last night’s results. For one thing, it’s fair to say that the question of what the amendment actually would’ve done was somewhat murky for many observers and voters. As I noted in a piece on the ballot initiative last week, opponents of the amendment united in lockstep around the falsehood that a “yes” vote was essentially a vote to ban abortion in Kansas. For instance, a coalition led by Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and others in opposition to the amendment branded itself “Kansans for Constitutional Freedom.” In reality, the amendment would’ve taken Kansas back to abortion neutrality, allowing lawmakers to legislate on the issue — though it’s likely that the legislature’s slant would’ve quickly resulted in a much more pro-life status quo than is currently permitted.
In other words, supporters of abortion effectively won the messaging battle. While many Kansans likely opposed the state supreme court ruling finding a right to abortion in the constitution and would prefer more pro-life laws than are currently permitted, they also didn’t like the idea of a total abortion ban, which is how the other side managed to cast the amendment. Given the amendment’s language and the relative murkiness of what it actually would’ve done policy-wise, the outcome doesn’t easily translate into the assumption that Americans across the country are poised to accept what the Democratic Party prefers when it comes to abortion policy.
While I’m certain that Democrats are over-reading last night’s results, I’d also offer pro-lifers two general words of caution in reacting to this news. The first: Don’t allow Republican politicians to consider the outcome in Kansas evidence that being pro-life is electorally toxic. One bad result on a confusing amendment in a state that’s relatively moderate on abortion isn’t indicative of how Americans feel about abortion policy. And the second: Remember that the Democratic Party is deeply out of step with Americans, and its own voters, on abortion. It’s true that most Americans oppose enacting total protections for unborn children, but most Americans also oppose allowing abortion for any reason until birth. This debate is in many ways a messaging battle, and we will be more successful in the long run if we continue to highlight the grotesque extremism of the other side than if we allow them to put us on defense.