As President Joe Biden promised Democrats he would protect and expand abortion and reproductive healthcare, 2024 Republican presidential candidates were just up the street courting evangelical voters with their somewhat different positions.
The political split-screen provides a preview of next year’s election on the eve of the first anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning landmark abortion precedent, Roe v. Wade.
BIDEN EMERGES FROM FIRST HOUSE REPUBLICAN IMPEACHMENT THREAT UNSCATHED
Democrats are confident the abortion access fight will animate their base after the party outperformed expectations last cycle, with the issue still at the forefront thanks to the Republican primary and state reforms. Since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision last June 24, 15 states have banned all or almost all abortions. Six more states have had their prohibitions blocked by courts, excluding Florida.
But Republicans admit their mistake was distancing themselves from Dobbs, a mistake they are adamant not to make again.
“Life is a winning issue for Republicans if they clearly articulate their plan and vision to protect life rather than shying away from the issue,” Heritage Action Executive Director Jessica Anderson told the Washington Examiner. “A majority of voters don’t agree with the Left’s pro-abortion extremism that advocates for abortion at any point up to, or even after, the gender reveal of point of birth.
“On the other hand,” she added, “many conservatives that stood up for life and addressed the issue head-on were successful.
“Look no further than Gov. [Ron] DeSantis [R-FL] as an example. Before his reelection campaign, DeSantis pledged to sign a six-week life protection bill into law, and he won his gubernatorial race by the largest margin in 40 years.”
SBA Pro-Life America has also underscored DeSantis’s six-week ban, which the Florida governor did not sign publicly last spring and only referenced briefly during his remarks at Friday’s Faith and Freedom Coalition Road to Majority Policy Conference. SBA Pro-Life America’s Emily Osment is similarly encouraging Republican candidates “to please be clear” regarding their abortion stances while amplifying family assistance programs as the GOP appeals to suburban women.
“If you are not clear and you’re ambiguous, then the other side will paint you any way they want, and they’re going to paint you as an extremist, and then you run the risk of not being understood accurately,” she said. “But I will tell you that we will not endorse anyone who can’t, at the very least, very least, understand that life needs to be protected by 15 weeks.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence appeared to heed Osment’s advice during his Faith and Freedom Coalition conference speech after the organization’s founder Ralph Reed urged the candidates “to, candidly, grow a backbone.”
“Every Republican candidate for president should support a ban on abortions before 15 weeks as a minimum nationwide standard,” Pence said Friday.
Although Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) announced he would back a 15-week ban, other candidates, such as former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have declined to specify a time frame, contending there is no national consensus and the states should decide. Former President Donald Trump has even criticized DeSantis’s prohibition for being “too “harsh.” Meanwhile, Pence group Advancing American Freedom filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit undermining the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, the most widely used abortion pill. Pence is also speaking this weekend at SBA Pro-Life America and Students for Life events.
Meanwhile, on Friday afternoon, Biden, whose campaign was endorsed this week by NARAL Pro-Choice America, EMILY’s List, and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, rallied Democrats at another downtown Washington, D.C., hotel.
“What’s really remarkable is, despite the will of the American people, MAGA Republicans made it clear that they won’t stop with the Dobbs decision,” he said.
Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said, “The leadership and organizing power demonstrated by (NARAL Pro-Choice America, EMILY’s List, and Planned Parenthood Action Fund) was essential to Democrats’s strong performances in the 2022 midterms, and it will be again in 2024 as our campaign assembles a winning coalition to reelect President Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris.
“With their help,” she added, “and by fighting to elect Democrats up and down the ballot, President Biden and Vice President Harris will work tirelessly to make history and codify Roe v. Wade into federal law in their second term.”
Simultaneously, the Democratic National Committee has invested in a six-figure ad buy, including digital spots and billboards in the nation’s capital, New York City’s Times Square, and the battleground states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
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To mark the Dobbs anniversary, Biden, who has had personal reservations concerning abortion in the past, signed his third reproductive healthcare executive order Friday, this time covering contraceptives after Justice Clarence Thomas welcomed other legal challenges to substantive due process precedents in his concurring opinion. The executive action, which seeks to strengthen Obamacare’s mandate to insure contraception without out-of-pocket costs, has been scrutinized for being tokenistic.
“We don’t believe this is symbolic,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “We believe that this is another step to really deal with this gap that we’re seeing across the country and to do everything that we can, everything that we can to continue to fight for fundamental rights.”
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