Ron DeSantis just signed a six-week abortion ban into law – but the Florida governor may not have his finger on the political pulse as polling shows now approximately two-thirds of Americans support abortion rights.
After the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, states all over the nation have tightened their grip over abortion but support for such restrictions has steadily dipped over the past decade and a half.
There was little change in public opinion in the months following the overturning of Roe, though the threat of restriction mobilized Democrats and independent-minded voters last midterm cycle.
A whopping 64 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to the newest data Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI.) Sixty-three percent disagreed with the decision to overturn Roe.
The Supreme Court will let an abortion pill remain on the market, for now – preserving the drug’s availability while the court decides the administration’s emergency request next week.
The Supreme Court temporarily restores full access to the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone – the interim stay will expire at midnight on Wednesday.
Thirty percent think abortion should be legal at all stages of pregnancy, 34 percent think it should be legal in most cases, 25 percent say it should be illegal in most cases and 9 percent say it should be illegal in all cases.
Just 9 percent of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all cases and 25 percent believe it should be illegal in most cases.
In 2010, only 55 percent of Americans believed abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Since Roe was overturned 14 states have made abortion illegal or heavily restricted.
In Florida, DeSantis signed the Heartbeat Protection Act – which outlaws abortion around a month and a half into pregnancy when a fetal heartbeat is detected – and makes no exceptions for rape or incest unless a woman can prove she was the victim of such a crime.
If a woman can provide a restraining order, police report, medical record or other evidence, she can obtain an abortion up until 15 weeks into pregnancy.
A poll from February conducted by University of North Florida found 75 percent of the state’s residents opposed the six-week ban, including 61 percent of Republicans.
DeSantis appears to hope the ban will in a presidential primary attract evangelical voters who are turned off by Donald Trump. But he risks losing the support of independents and suburban voters, particularly in a general election.
Strategists say he should’ve read the writing on the wall in states like Wisconsin – where liberals gained control of the state’s high court when Judge Janet Protasiewicz made expanding abortion rights front and center to her campaign.
Abortion became illegal in Wisconsin upon the overturning of Roe due to an 1849 law on the books banning the procedure. The newly liberal-leaning court is supposed to take up a case challenging that law.
‘Every time a new strict law is enacted, or pill banned, it makes it that much harder for Republicans to hit Democrats whose views are extreme on the other side of the spectrum,’ GOP strategist Doug Heye told DailyMail.com.
‘This is especially true in swing states like North Carolina and Wisconsin.’
‘While it seems like DeSantis is working to bolster his legislative record ahead of his presidential run, it would be a critical mistake for any Republican running to ignore the fact that this is the first presidential election in a post-Dobbs world,’ added Jennifer Lim, founder of Republican Women for Progress.
‘As Rep. Nancy Mace reiterated this week, ‘women are watching’ and if the GOP continues to fail to come up with a more nuanced message, they do so at their own risk further alienating critical voters and mobilizing Democrats ahead of 2024.’
Demonstrators turn out for “Ohio March for Life” to support ending abortion access in Ohio at the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, Oct. 5, 2022
A flag that reads “my body, my choice,” flutters in the wind across the street from Florida Capitol where the House voted ban abortions after six weeks on Thursday, April 13, 2023 in Tallahassee, Fla.
DeSantis signed the Heartbeat Protection Act – which outlaws abortion around a month and a half into pregnancy when a fetal heartbeat is detected
While Trump is still the GOP’s runaway top candidate for 2024, the president faced some backlash from conservatives when he blamed abortion restrictions for the GOP’s underperformance in midterms.
But abortion rights advocates will be quick to note that Trump appointed the judges that overturned Roe.
After Sen. Tim Scott launched a presidential exploratory committee, the South Carolina Republican failed to nail down exactly where he stood on abortion. Scott, who often invokes his Christian faith in public addresses, said he would ‘definitely’ sign a 20-week abortion ban, but did not say if that would go far enough.
‘We have to have a federal limit on how far we can go, and that is something that we have to discuss,’ Scott said in a local television interview in Manchester this week.
Presidential candidate Nikki Haley has also given intentionally vague comments on the issue.
‘This is a personal issue for women and for men,’ Haley said in Iowa this week. ‘It needs to be treated with the respect that it should. I don’t want unelected judges deciding something this personal.’
She urged finding a ‘consensus’ on the issue, but said Republicans shouldn’t ‘let this become a political football.’
‘Let’s let the states work this out,’ Haley said. ‘If Congress decides to do it — but don’t get in that game of them saying ‘how many weeks, how many’ — no. Let’s first figure out what we agree on, and then move forward. This is about saving as many babies as we can. This is about supporting as many moms as we can.’
Most Americans seem to be somewhere in the middle on the matter – a June 2022 Gallup poll found 67 percent of Americans support allowing abortions in the first trimester, while support tanked in the second trimester to 36 percent and 20 percent in the third.
When the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion before 20 weeks that had been in place for nearly 50 years, Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion: ‘the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.’
‘Women on both sides of the abortion issue,’ he wrote, should ‘seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting and running for office.’
A number of early factors appear to show pro-choice advocates appear to be winning the political battle. With abortion front and center to the 2022 midterms, an expected ‘red wave’ in the House gave way to only a four seat majority.
Democrats held on to the Senate. They defended every state legislature in their control and flipped four more.
And last week a Texas judge declared the FDA’s approval of abortion pill mifepristone was not valid, saying the drug should be yanked from the market.
But an appeals court ruling said this week the drug could remain on the market while a lawsuit brought by anti-abortion groups against the FDA plays out. The temporary stay will expire at midnight on Wednesday.
The appeals court did however block the pill from being sent by mail – meaning those in states where abortion is outlawed could not easily access it. It also blocked health care providers who are not doctors from prescribing mifepristone and said the drug could only be used up to seven weeks into pregnancy instead of 10.
But on Thursday afternoon, another judge in a separate mifepristone case issued an order that required the FDA not to limit access to the drug in much of the country.
The dueling federal court orders mean the Supreme Court could have to step in – the Department of Justice appealed the case to the high court on Friday.
A majority of Americans – 53 percent – say medication abortion should be legal in their state, while half as many (22 percent) say it should be illegal. Another 24 percent say they aren’t sure.
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