After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, far-right Republicans in red states wasted no time pushing for abortion bans. But in swing states, countless Democratic candidates have been aggressively campaigning on abortion rights — and using the issue to tar and feather their GOP opponents. It isn’t uncommon for Democrats, during the 2022 midterms, to run scathing attack ads pointing out that a Republican candidate opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest.
In a listicle published by the conservative website The Bulwark on August 30, journalist Jim Swift lays out three ways in which GOP midterm candidates are handling the abortion issue in a post-Roe political environment. And they include: (1) “The Blake Masters Path: De-emphasize abortion,” (2) “The Tudor Dixon Path: Full steam ahead, no exceptions,” and (3) “The ‘I get it, now’ path.”
In Arizona’s 2022 U.S. Senate race, the Republican nominee is Blake Masters — a far-right MAGA conspiracy theorist who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump and is up against centrist incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. Masters, in the past, was a strident opponent of abortion. But as Swift emphasizes, Masters is now avoiding the abortion issue as much as possible.
READ MORE: How Roe's reversal has supercharged abortion rights activists: conservative
It isn’t hard to understand why Masters is taking this approach; he obviously believes that the abortion issue helps Kelly.
In deep-red Kansas, 59 percent of voters recently voted against an anti-abortion ballot measure — and if there are that many pro-choice voters in a state as red as Kansas, being anti-abortion may not prove beneficial for Masters in a swing state like Arizona. Trump won Kansas by 15 percent, but he narrowly lost Arizona to now-President Joe Biden. Moreover, Arizona's two U.S. senators, Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema, are both pro-choice Democrats.
Swift observes, “While he was running for the GOP nomination to challenge Sen. Mark Kelly in Arizona, Blake Masters had on his website a pledge to support a federal personhood law or constitutional amendment. That pledge has been deleted…. Masters isn’t alone among GOP contenders in quieting down his abortion stance after winning the nomination. Even Doug Mastriano has stayed mum since winning his primary.”
Pennsylvania State Sen. Mastriano, a far-right Christian nationalist and conspiracy theorist, is the Republican gubernatorial nominee in that state whose views are further to the right than those of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. But as Swift points out, Mastriano has recently been downplaying his severe anti-abortion views — as he obviously realizes that the abortion issue benefits his Democratic opponent, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro.
READ MORE: Even if Griswold stands, states are likely to ban contraception
But in Michigan, Republican gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon — who is up against Democratic incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — is doubling down on her opposition to abortion, even for rape victims. Whitmer, meanwhile, is vowing to aggressively fight for abortion rights if she is reelected.
“Another possibility is to keep strongly supporting limitations on abortion, often without any exceptions for cases of rape and incest, or the health of the mother,” Swift explains. “It’s easier for people who aren’t running in statewide elections, but rather, for safe, red seats to hold this more extreme position. Still, some people running for statewide office, like Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon, just keep on truckin’ through the gaffes.”
During a recent interview, Dixon doubled down on her opposition to abortion even for a 14-year-old rape victim — saying, “I’ve talked to those people who were the child of a rape victim…. there was healing through that baby…. And those voices, the babies of rape victims that have come forward, are very powerful when you hear their story and what the truth is behind that. It’s very hard to not stand up for those people.”
Swift cites South Carolina State Rep. Neal Collins as an example of a Republican who is taking the “I get it now” approach to abortion. Collins was an outspoken abortion opponent in the past but is now speaking out against anti-abortion laws that are so extreme that they forbid abortion even when a pregnant woman’s life is in danger.
“Some Republicans are belatedly realizing the unintended consequences of abortion restrictions in some states,” Swift observes. “This doesn’t mean they’ll be switching sides and winning endorsements from Planned Parenthood or Emily’s List, but it does suggest that at least some Republicans are feeling the pressure to adjust to the new political realities. In a now-viral video, Neal Collins, a Republican state representative in South Carolina, expressed regret for supporting the fetal heartbeat law enacted by the state last year. Collins said that one of his constituents, a doctor, told him about how it is impacting women. Until that call, Rep. Collins apparently never considered the effect of his vote — probably because, before Dobbs, these sorts of exercises were less about legislating and more often about trying to keep the base happy or get a case before the High Court.”
READ MORE: 'I did not sleep': GOP lawmaker vividly describes the horror inflicted by an abortion bill he voted for
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Republicans are giddy about 'owning the libs.' The citizens they govern pay a tragic price
If dying young appeals to you, here's a simple bit of advice: move to a state or county controlled by Republicans.
At first glance, the images below appear to be political maps. And in the most real sense of the word they are: the county-by-county differences shown by the map from Jeremy Ney's brilliant American Inequality Substack newsletter and the state-by-state screen shot from the CDC's NCHS below it.
Both reflect, in large part, decades of regional policy differences.
Long-lived parts of America have generally embraced progressive policies dating back to FDR's New Deal; the early-death parts of our country most often reflect conservative opposition to everything from the working-class wealth that unionization and higher minimum wages bring, to the availability of healthcare through Medicaid expansion.
2019 Life Expectancy by State — Source: National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control
To zoom out ever farther, since many conservative policies affect the entire country, consider what happened to the health of our nation in the 1980s with the Reagan Revolution. It's particularly visible when you compare the outcomes of our healthcare system with other developed countries.
Our World In Data lays it out starkly, as you will see below. One of the proudest accomplishments of the neoliberal Reagan Revolution was—following a bill Nixon signed in 1973 that opened the door—overturning laws in state-after-state that required both hospitals and health insurance companies to run as non-profits.
Reagan also, in 1983, ordered the DOJ, FTC, and SEC to essentially stop enforcing anti-trust laws dating back to the 1891 Sherman Act, resulting in the "Mergers & Acquisitions Mania" that characterized the 1980s and inspired the "greed is good" movie Wall Street starring Michael Douglas.
Health insurance companies, hospitals, and pharmaceutical manufacturers all morphed from regional and competitive organizations into giant, monopolistic predators.
Their profits exploded and our lifespans collapsed. Every year now, they spread hundreds of millions of dollars around Washington DC and state capitols to prevent regulation and maintain the status quo.
We are, quite literally, the only country in the world with a corrupt Supreme Court that has legalized this kind of a vicious attack on its citizens by a bought-off political party and their morbidly rich donors.
The Republicans on the Supreme Court call it "free speech" but every other nation in the world knows it's simply naked, criminal, political bribery.
As you can see above, the average American spends more than twice as much on healthcare every year as do the citizens of any other developed country in the world. And, as the Reagan Revolution really bit hard in the 1980s and 1990s, our average lifespans collapsed while corporate healthcare profits exploded.
And it's not just death by lack of healthcare that skews these statistics: if you're concerned about being murdered, it's also a good idea to avoid states run by conservatives. As the centrist Third Way think tank noted last month:
It's true of Red cities as well. Again, from Third Way:
And don't even think about having sex in Red states: they generally lead America in sexually transmitted diseases, presumably because most have outlawed teaching sex education in their public schools.
The five states with the highest rates of Chlamydia infections are Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and New Mexico. The highest rates of Gonorrhea are in Mississippi, Alaska, South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana.
Speaking of schools, the states with the lowest educational attainment in the nation are entirely Red states. Ranked from terrible to absolutely worst, they are: Idaho, Indiana, Oklahoma, Alabama, Nevada, Louisiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia.
As giddy as Republicans are about "owning the libs," the citizens they govern pay a tragic price for the sport. They are literally dying as conservative politicians revel in their ability to cut taxes for the rich and suppress wages and healthcare for everybody else.
Republicans are about to take over the House of Representatives and begin their "investigations" into, well, anything that will distract from these terrible statistics. In the meantime, Americans, particularly those in Red states and counties, will continue to die at rates considered obscene by the standards of every other developed nation in the world.
Our next chance to put America back on track will be in two years, and we damn well better get ready.