Now that Roe is gone, some Republicans are backing away from the national abortion ban
In 2021, Representative Michelle Steel, a California Republican whose district President Biden won in 2020, co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act, a bill to recognize a fertilized egg as a person with equal protection under the 14th Amendment.
It took a year for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Ms. Steel was one of 166 Republicans in the House of Representatives — then about three-quarters of the conference — who would ultimately sign the legislation, which amounted to a nationwide abortion ban. She did this just weeks after it was introduced.
For Republicans, the bill's far-reaching potential impact was not seen as problematic at the time. In the case of Roe v. Wade, which recognized a constitutional right to abortion as the law of the land, the measure might have little practical effect. It was primarily a gesture of support for the anti-abortion movement, a vital source of political support for the Republican Party. And the Democrats, who controlled the House of Representatives at the time, were never going to vote on it anyway.
Last year, when Republicans in the House of Representatives introduced identical legislation, the landscape had changed significantly. The Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned Roe, setting off a race for many states to impose tough restrictions, and abortion bans became a politically toxic issue for Republicans in elections across the country. The Republican Party also regained control of the House of Representatives, if only narrowly, with the power to control what was brought to the table.
Ms. Steel waited nearly a year to sign up — and did so on Friday morning, only after her Democratic challenger criticized her for spinning the issue for political gain and The New York Times alerted her to a story in which her change of position was documented. Nearly three dozen other Republican lawmakers who supported it in the last Congress, including several who face tough reelection races in competitive districts, have yet to sign up again.
The shift reflects how dramatically the demise of Roe has changed the GOP's calculus on abortion, creating a dilemma for members of a party that still wants to appeal to conservative voters who favor tough restrictions without to alienate a growing majority in the country that does not. .
It could also spell the demise of a tactic that Republicans in Congress have used successfully for decades to score political points with their base: the anti-abortion bill.
Speaker Mike Johnson, an evangelical Christian who has placed his faith at the forefront of his politics throughout his career, has called abortion “an American holocaust.” But even he has acknowledged the political realities of the moment and said he will not insist on raising controversial social issues this year.
In the year and a half since the Dobbs decision, it has become clear to many Republicans that taking away a right women have had for decades does not lead to a positive political outcome for them. About 69 percent of voters believe abortion should be legal during the first three months of pregnancy. according to a recent Gallup polla record high.
Democrats have capitalized on this dynamic, highlighting their efforts to protect access to abortion and attacking Republicans who have previously tried to limit or ban it — even if they have since distanced themselves from their position or simply remained silent on the issue.
“Steel will do whatever it takes to win,” said Derek Tran, a consumer rights attorney and Democrat who is running to unseat Ms. Steel. “She is silent on abortion issues, but she has been nothing but an extremist who has led to the elimination of abortion as a right.”
While voters in other parts of the country may be concerned about laws or ballot measures restricting abortions across the state, he added that in deep blue California they are “afraid of federal legislation.”
A spokeswoman for Ms. Steel, Claire Nance, criticized The Times for inquiring whether the congresswoman had changed her position, saying that Ms. Steel “is pro-life, with the exception of rape, incest and maternal health.” The bill she approved on Friday does not include these exceptions.
The group of former co-sponsors who have stayed away from the legislation this time include two other vulnerable Republican lawmakers from California who also represent districts Mr. Biden won in the last presidential election: Reps. David Valadao and Mike Garcia.
Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, a former co-sponsor of the bill who won her 2020 election by six votes, also dropped the latest version. Two other Republicans whose districts Mr. Biden won in 2020, Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and David Schweikert of Arizona, also did not sign this year, even though they supported the bill in the past.
Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican who represents a purple district in South Carolina, is also a previous cosponsor who avoided the bill this time and talked about how the party needs to have a more appealing message to female voters if it wants one. keep control of the House.
Some former co-sponsors have given reasons for withholding their support this time around, while others have not. Mr. Bacon has said he does not support the 2023 legislation because it does not include a clear exception for the life of the mother. (The 2021 version he supported didn't either.)
When asked directly at an intimate town hall As to whether she planned to co-sponsor the Life at Conception Act at this Congress, as she had done in the past, Ms. Miller-Meeks said that “it hasn't come up yet,” then said that most people define life as beginning between ages 12 and 15. to soften.
Mary Ziegler, a law professor and historian of abortion at the University of California, Davis, said Republicans have not changed their positions, but some are simply undermining the anti-abortion language and gestures they once embraced and now believe they could harm them politically.
“What they're trying to do is achieve things for the anti-abortion movement without broadcasting it because they don't want the political backlash,” Professor Ziegler said. “A bill with empty gestures clearly seems like a bad idea.”
Still, more than 50 percent of Republicans in the House of Representatives support the national abortion ban bill, even after the legislation has been withdrawn.
Nicole McCleskey, a Republican Party pollster, said Republicans were still navigating the new, more politically thorny abortion landscape and that lawmakers from competitive districts were beginning to understand the need to strike a balance between showing they value women and stay true to their principles.
“There are adjustments to the way we represent our views that are still consistent with the position on preserving life,” Ms McCleskey said. “No one is going to vote for someone who says they will take away their rights, but we haven't fully recognized that in the way we talk about this issue.”
Ms. McCleskey said she advises Republicans to be consistent on abortion but try to signal their respect for women by talking about other issues, such as contraception, mental health care and care for older women.
Some Republicans are trying a version of that approach. Nikki Haley, the only woman in the Republican Party primary, has spoken about ensuring access to contraception, and Ms. Miller-Meeks has pointed to a contraception bill she introduced to soften criticism of her opposition to abortion rights.
This week, two House committees began considering a measure, titled the Pregnant Student Rights Act, that would require colleges and universities to disseminate information about the rights, benefits and resources available to pregnant students.
Abortion rights organizations condemned the bill in a letter to members of Congress as “a thinly veiled anti-abortion bill that would fail to remove key barriers to educational attainment for pregnant students.” They argue that the proposed bill aims to limit health care options for pregnant students by omitting abortion from the list of rights and services that should be made available to them.
Dana Singiser, co-founder of the nonprofit Contraception Access Initiative, said it was a smart political move for Republicans to focus on smaller, seemingly tasty initiatives that on the surface appear to strengthen women's rights, rather than limit them.
“It is now politically indefensible to support a national abortion ban,” she said. “This is the embodiment of the dog that caught the car. They were against abortion, the right is overturned by the Supreme Court, and then they don't know how to reconcile their extremist positions, which were defensible as long as people actually had the right.”
Still, some Republicans are pushing for action on the issue as aggressively as ever.
“Protecting life is one of my top priorities in Congress,” said Rep. Alex X. Mooney of West Virginia, the lead sponsor of the Life at Conception Act, who is running for Senate. “Respecting human life from the moment of conception until natural death is not simply a religious belief; it is a scientific fact that life begins at conception.”