No use pretending otherwise: The pro-life cause took some significant losses yesterday. Several states passed pro-choice referenda. The worst loss was in Michigan. Some protections for unborn children might have become possible there down the line; now, they would require amending the state constitution. Pro-lifers will have to face more such referenda in 2024. And while the atmospherics may be different then — perhaps ambivalent voters will be less worried about the risk of draconian restrictions on abortion by that time — pro-lifers will still be underfunded and up against a press that, by and large, has no interest in drawing out the implications of the pro-choice ballot language.
Pro-lifers also had an interest in seeing enough pro-life candidates win their races to block a federal “codification of Roe” (let alone the more sweeping legislation that travels under that phrase). That seems to have happened. They were not, realistically, going to be in any position to elect enough candidates to get a federal ban on abortion, even late in pregnancy, enacted; now, even the chance of enacting such a bill in 2025 has fallen because a Senate supermajority is further off.
They had two more interests in the fate of candidates. It would have been nice if the elections had gone so badly for the Democrats that they decided fighting for abortion was either a losing issue or at least not a winner for them. Obviously, that didn’t happen. They will be more convinced than ever, with some justification, that the issue works for them.
Finally, they were interested in avoiding a set of election results that caused panicky Republicans to reverse or neuter their position on abortion or to flinch from enacting pro-life legislation. There is now a lively debate among Republicans about “how much abortion hurt the party.” But the parameters of that debate are narrow. The election was not such a rout that the party will entertain dropping the pro-life cause as seriously as it did in the early 1990s (which wasn’t all that seriously). The party’s strategists have never been eager to run on the issue.
Both sides of the narrow debate that is taking place have some points on their side. There’s no question that the issue helped the Democrats sway some voters and turn out even more. It’s also true that signing laws protecting unborn children didn’t keep some Republican governors in big states, even swing states, from winning big. Embracing the federal 15-week ban didn’t keep Rubio from winning by a large margin or stop Budd; on the other hand, pro-life candidates who largely avoided the issue in their ads, such as Brian Kemp, did fine too.
Where Republicans will land, I think, is already pretty clear: Most of them will keep saying they are pro-life when pressed but won’t talk about the issue much; a few of them will continue to be passionately pro-life but may now put a higher premium on prudence in their actions and rhetoric. The fight for life continues for the long haul.