The Kansas abortion referendum was, unquestionably, disappointing to pro-lifers and a morale boost for Democrats.
Ramesh notes some of the reasons why the framing of this particular referendum was unfavorable. I’d add two more. One, which I’ll discuss below a bit more, is timing. The status quo bias in favor of a “no” vote was helped by the fact that very few state abortion bans have been in effect for much time, if at all, yet. That made it easier to paint a “yes” vote as a leap into a hazardous unknown. The second, to which Ramesh nods, is that more so than most states, Kansas for many years has been considerably more Republican than it is conservative. That is not to deny that it has produced some very conservative figures, whether of the religious conservative sort (think Sam Brownback, who won all six of his statewide races between 1996 and 2014) or the Trumpier sort (think Kris Kobach, who won his primary yesterday to run for state attorney general).
But Kansas has deep ancestral ties to the GOP, going all the way back to its having been founded, in effect, by an armed wing of the Republican Party in the 1850s. Republicans have won the state by 20 or more points in 23 different presidential elections back to 1864; the Democrats have won it only six times, four of which were Democratic landslide years nationally (the exceptions being 1896 and 1916). One could cite chapter and verse at different levels of government, but the relevant point is that the state has been more Republican than not at every point in the past 160 years, through a lot of different ideological and issue environments. Few other states have such a deep reserve of Republican partisanship. As a result, Kansas moderates are a good deal more likely to be Republicans than moderates in other states — a fact reflected in the careers of people such as Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum and visible again in some of the state legislature’s fights with Brownback during his governorship. Thus, it is easy to overstate exactly how ideologically red Kansas is from its partisan lean. It’s not Mississippi or Utah or even Nebraska.
All of that said, there is no reason that pro-lifers should abandon Kansas or other states like it. The movement should, instead, learn some crucial lessons about strategy.
First, focus on securing the beachheads. There are many strategic lessons that pro-lifers take from the progress of the anti-slavery movement, but we should start with this one. Anti-slavery became a powerful force in national politics only after it had (1) convincingly won over the voters in the states where slavery was least popular, beginning with New England and Pennsylvania, (2) shown the practical workability of emancipation in states such as New York and New Jersey, (3) demonstrated the superiority of the free-state model, and (4) built a sufficient power base to keep the federal government from strangling political anti-slavery in new territories, at least in the Midwest and Upper Midwest. Trying to sell the nation on a complete federal ban on slavery in 1787 would have been lunacy for the movement, but by 1807, even a slaveowning president was willing to sign a ban on the trans-Atlantic slave trade. By the 1850s, however, freedom — not slavery — was the status quo in states housing 60 percent of the nation’s population. The prospect of adding more free states was frightening to nobody but the hard-core defenders of slavery.
That model can be followed by pro-lifers. It requires, in the short term of 2022–23, a laser focus on winning where the wins are within reach, and pushing no further than necessary. If it takes a 15-week, or twelve-week, or six-week ban, if it takes exceptions for rape and incest, or a larger “health” exception than seems prudent: so be it. Once the principle of life is established in a state, incremental progress can be sought later. This is best done legislatively, although that requires bypassing states (such as Kansas) where the judiciary has ruled out democratic lawmaking. The sooner a critical mass of states can be built up where abortion bans of any sort are thinkable and even acceptable, the better. Plant the mustard seeds now, and know that you can sit in their shade later.
Second, and relatedly, be willing to compromise. Compromise is painful when it means leaving some children to their deaths; no later progress can undo that. But it is how progress in a democracy works. And pro-lifers now have the advantage on that score. The pro-life ideology is that all human life is sacred at every stage and should be protected in law, but a law that protects some lives is better than a law that protects no lives. A 15-week abortion ban concedes nothing to principle, as opposed to political reality. By contrast, Democrats’ pro-abortion ideology assumes that any restriction at all is intolerable — even a limit on taxpayers subsidizing abortion — so even to engage in a discussion of compromise is heresy. As pro-lifers, we can use that contrast. Many Americans, perhaps a third of the country, are in the mushy eyeball-test middle on this issue: They aren’t willing to ban all abortions, but they also dislike taxpayer funding of abortion and see late-term abortions as barbaric. (Indeed, one argument made prominently against the “yes” position in Kansas was that the state already bans taxpayer funding, so doing so by referendum was unnecessary.) Dobbs itself illustrates the contrast: Mississippi was defending only a 15-week ban, while the abortionists and the Biden administration were stuck defending a “no compromise, no restrictions are possible” position. What we don’t need is people in deep-red states who are so eager to flex their pro-lifer-than-thou credentials that they push states into seeking uncompromising rules that produce blowback against the beachheads.
Third, fight the smears — and do so precisely by being visible about compromise. Nobody is against ending ectopic pregnancies, which are incapable of producing a live-born child. Nobody needs to draw a line in the sand around the most extreme cases: rape victims in their early teens, severe health problems. The abortion industry and its progressive flacks focus entirely on these cases because they know that the argument around the vast majority of abortions is much harder to defend. Win the cultural argument over those majority cases, and we will be in a much better position to have a conversation about the extreme cases.
Most of the great victories won by conservatives, Republicans, and Christians in this country have been long struggles with many setbacks. We knew, after Dobbs, that we would not win every battle ahead. But we should plan for the long game, because justice and mercy and common decency are still on our side.