I’m going to be really honest with you. The short answer is in this campaign, I can’t [discuss abortion]. When I’m governor and I have a majority in the House we can start going on offense. But as a campaign topic, sadly, that in fact won’t win my independent votes that I have to get.
Candidate Glenn Youngkin in July
Conservatives may hope the high court upholds Mississippi’s new abortion law (not after 15 weeks), but they should re-visit Virginia’s gubernatorial race, where Dems did not fire up their base or appeal to independent voters. No offense to Mississippi, but swing districts turn on independent voters, many of whom are pro-choice. Thus, the GOP better have a rebuttal to “Trump-appointed justices reversed Roe,” because that’s what Democrats will scream.
Since the Roe decision in January 1973, abortion activists have divided into two institutionalized camps that don’t listen or show interest in compromise, so Glenn Youngkin avoided the divisive issue to flip a blue state back to the GOP. Even today, he says he’ll “entertain” some antiabortion legislation next year, but not on “day one.” He’s smart, and he’s Virginia’s governor because he won women and independent voters.
The Youngkin campaign kept three popular GOP issues before Virginia’s voters: (1) restore the state’s “pro-business” reputation, (2) put education before indoctrination in the state’s schools, and (3) revive law enforcement all over the commonwealth. By not talking about abortion (or immigration), he won 53% of suburban (and 55% of Hispanic) voters (source: ABC News). That’s strategic, because Roe is complicated and, therefore, divisive.
The Sexual Revolution Is Over and Sex Won
By the time Glenn Youngkin finished college in 1988, baby boomers had turned abortion into a social construct. Along with “the pill,” it allowed the Me Generation to re-define the pursuit of happiness for the young and un-married. The NSFG table below charts the percentage of “sexually experienced” by age groups over forty years, and shows the “sexual revolution” coinciding with available and legal means to birth control.
| Age | 1963 | 1973 | 1983 | 1993 |
| 15 | 4% | 6% | 10% | 13% |
| 18 | 26% | 39% | 50% | 59% |
| 20 | 48% | 65% | 72% | 76% |
In 1963, most baby boomers (74%) entered college as virgins. Twenty years later (1983), only half (50%) arrived sexually inexperienced. And, by 1993, very few (24%) left college virginity intact. As a practical matter, abortion is a lifestyle issue built on three tenets: (1) sex drive is ubiquitous after puberty, (2) teen pregnancy is a bad thing, and (3) birth control lets teens do what’s natural without derailing their life trajectories.
As a political matter, this “pragmatic view” does not please evangelical Christians. However, they are only 14% of the electorate (source: NPR). This is what informed the Youngkin Campaign – and other swing-state Republicans would be wise to follow suit.
It’s OK to Agree to Disagree on the Issue
As a political matter, the parties are focused on whether Roe v. Wade was correctly decided, especially on the extremes. Feminists argue a woman has an inalienable right to terminate a fetus in her womb. Moralists argue a fetus has an inalienable right to life. It’s increasingly clear the inalienable (absolute) right both sides want is not widely supported – and the polls show this.
Gallup reports 49% of voters say they’re “pro-choice” and 47% say they’re “pro-life.” But, only 29% say abortion should be “unconditionally” legal, only 20% say it should “always be” illegal, and 50% say it should be “legal under certain circumstances.” This is what informed the Youngkin campaign: 79% of voters DON’T want Roe reversed completely, and 70% of voters DON’T want fetuses aborted at nine months.
Being a pragmatist, I am not alone in being pro-choice with some restrictions. The US economy benefits when young women are not derailed from their professional goals by unwanted pregnancies. The author of Freakonomics credibly linked lower crime rates to more low-income abortions. I see other, more pressing, issues ignored by single-issue voters. Above all, abortions have decreased, from 1,429,000 in 1990 to just 612,000 in 2017 (source: CDC).
It Is Not Radical to Want Judicial Restraint
Full Disclosure: I think abortion is a matter for Congress to decide, because it’s not clear whether the high court should have decided the matter at all. Like many conservatives, I think Roe is a textbook case of jurists legislating from the bench. The Supreme Court could be, as Justice Kavanaugh stated, “scrupulously neutral on the question of abortion, neither pro-choice nor pro-life.” His words, of course, ignited the pro-choice rage machine, but hear him out.
“Why should this court be the arbiter rather than Congress, the state legislatures, state supreme courts, the people being able to resolve this? And there’ll be different answers in Mississippi, in New York, different answers in Alabama than California, because there are two different interests at stake, and the people in those states might value those interests somewhat differently. Why is that not the right answer?”
What Kavanaugh called “court neutrality” can also be called judicial restraint. It is a fact that the high court did not have to hear Roe v. Wade – and then what? Feminists would have been forced into state legislatures and state supreme courts, creating pro-choice states (like California), or to elect a pro-choice Congress, making legal abortion the law of the land. Because Congress best reflects the will of the people.
The Christian Right Is Wrong on the CAMPAIGN Issue
Conservative Christians are good Americans, so it looks mean to criticize them for their narrow views on abortion, divorce and school prayer. Again, look to Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin, who is openly Christian and won more of the state’s evangelical vote than Trump. He gave evangelicals a “really honest” two-part answer in the summer about advancing abortion in a statewide campaign.
One, a pro-life campaign “won’t win [the] independent votes that I have to get” to win a statewide office. Two, “when I’m governor and I have a majority in the House we can start going on offense.” He then gave social conservatives a cultural issue that united voters: a pro-parent campaign against immoral lesson plans that tell kids they’re “racists” and woke educators pushing transgenderism on adolescents. The guess here is he’ll leave it to GOP legislators to initiate any pro-life bills.
Write it down. If the Supremes uphold Mississippi’s more restrictive abortion law, Democrats in swing districts will run against those “abortion banning” Republicans in 2022. The more pressing issue right now is the economy and a bad president, who must be checked by Congress. Not saying the Mississippi law is bad. Just saying I’d rather see GOP control of Congress – and Democrats don’t have a mid-term issue right now.