Opinion: Republicans will be reminded this November: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

It’s hard to overstate how the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn abortion rights has fundamentally reshaped political alliances in America. Two years on from the court’s disastrous decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, Democrats have built a powerful coalition that includes not just the party’s the progressive left and centrists, but a sizable chunk of disgusted Republican voters as well.

Democrats’ new coalition has led to candidates overperforming in special elections across the country. That’s true even in ruby red states like Alabama, where a campaign focused tightly on reproductive rights blasted through decades of conservative dominance. Now the abortion issue threatens to shatter Republicans’ stranglehold on state legislatures.

Meanwhile, national Republican leaders are still pleading with their federal candidates to avoid any discussion of abortion on the campaign trail. Good luck with that. 2024 will offer outraged voters their best opportunity yet to voice their anger about the GOP’s war on abortion rights.

In a race likely to be decided by fractions of a percentage point, it will be abortion more than anything else that keeps Donald Trump and his Republican allies out of power this November.

The old adage in politics is that voters cast their ballots based on things they can feel. When inflation pinches the pocketbook, workers get snippy. In their arrogant rush to demolish reproductive freedom, Republicans failed to realize that the same principle holds true for abortion access.

According to new data from the Center for American Progress, driving times in the South to the nearest abortion clinic have skyrocketed since Dobbs , with parts of Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia facing up to nine-hour commutes. More than a third of women now live in states with bans on abortion beginning at just six weeks of pregnancy . A quarter of the country now lives at least 200 miles from an abortion clinic.

Stories of women being dragged into court for suffering miscarriages now draw national attention. Just ask Brittany Watts, a 34-year-old Black Ohioan whose arrest after a miscarriage led even some Republican lawmakers to confess they’d gone too far. Their hindsight is too little, too late for the women who have already suffered long-term medical complications from their lack of access to basic reproductive healthcare.

Republican lawmakers believed that clamping down on abortion rights would mainly harm their political enemies on the left. Instead, red states have seen a disproportionate spike in the number of women whose lives have been put at risk due to lack of access to abortion. That’s true even when doctors rule that a woman’s pregnancy meets the legal requirements for an abortion in states that include exceptions for rape, incest or protecting the life of the mother.

We’re already seeing headlines of women during the past year who have met the medical standards for an abortion exception, only to have their request denied by non-medical professionals . Those myriad indignities have sparked a new round of political organizing in states including Indiana and Ohio, where Republicans are now facing unexpectedly tough state-level races. They should look to Alabama to see what happens when conservative politicians decide they know better than doctors.

Marilyn Lands is a glimpse into the future of abortion politics in America. A Democrat, Lands ran her campaign for the Alabama House of Representatives with a singular focus on abortion rights — something political consultants would have derided as insanity just a few cycles ago. Lands didn’t just win her race; she flipped a deep-red seat that had been out of reach for Democrats for years.

Other Democrats have followed her lead. New York Reps. Thomas Suozzi and Pat Ryan won competitive congressional races by forcing their Republican opponents to address the GOP’s war on women. Abortion rights referenda still enjoy an undefeated winning streak on state ballots, often lifting Democratic candidates to narrow wins over Republicans in the process. No serious political analyst denies the pro-abortion trend is growing. The only question is how large the wave will be by November.

America’s abortion public health crisis is a preventable disaster of Republicans’ own making, and voters have only just begun to punish them for their indefensible cruelty. Our country has become a demonstrably less safe place for pregnant women in the two years since Dobbs, and Republicans’ only response has been to hide behind a wall of silence.

Not even Republican voters are convinced by such a cowardly display. November will be a moment of immense reckoning for a Republican Party fixated on restricting the freedom of American women. It can’t come soon enough.

Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.

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