State abortion laws megathread

[junior chįmp]

It didn't stop Kentucky from getting a pro-choice governor. I am beginning to think that abortion isn't the main wedge issue and more of a fascade issue. Once it is exhausted, I can see them moving back to the main wedge issue. Which makes sense. Abortion became a main issue once their real issue began to lose ground but perhaps abortion gave them enough cover to stealthily work on their issue.

Abortion was never a major issue to begin with among the public. Just because an issue is made out to be a major issue doesn't mean it is so with the public. The public has no real opinion on anything. Political issues like abortion were made into major issues by party activists that took over the Republican party not because the people made it one.

In part this is a story everyone knows. Before Roe v. Wade, abortion wasn’t a partisan issue for elected officials. But the court’s actions made it impossible for party leaders to keep abortion off the congressional agenda. Over time, abortion was a large enough element of the agenda that it became incorporated into the partisan agenda—Democrats broadly for more availability of legal abortions and Republicans for less. But rather than the elected officials following the lead of their constituents, it was the other way around. The mass public followed the leader. Over time voters have tended to either conform their views on abortion to those of the party they support or else they switch parties.

This could lead you to the conclusion that the current alignment on abortion is arbitrary. But Noel has interesting evidence that it isn’t. Pre-1970 pundits didn’t write very much about abortion, but “those who were writing, however, broke down perfectly on ideological lines.”

https://slate.com/business/2014/01/history-of-abortion-polarization.html

Activists pick issues, force parties to adopt them, once they are adopted, the public develops an opinion on the issue due to their partisanship and not because they care.

[junior chįmp]

If Andy Beshear were pro-life he'd have won by a 10 pt margin instead of <1.

Lol. This reminds me of when all the polls showed Doug Jones losing to Moore in the AL Senate race....everyone claimed Doug Jones would of been leading if he was pro-life and then he won anyway.

Issue voting is a myth. The idea that Beshear would of won by 10% if he was pro-life is ludicrous. A recent poll by Marist found that 71% of New Yorkers think abortion should only be legal up until 20 weeks yet Cuomo just passed a bill legalizing up till 9 months. Does anyone on here really think that this will cause the Dems to suffer losses in the state?

But then again, what makes abortion such an special issue in that it swings votes while other issues rated higher in importance by the voters themselves according to polling have no effect? We are repeatedly told how health care is the most important issue and how it lost the GOP the House in 2018(well except all those victories in 2010 and 2014 when the GOP voted to repeal ACA 80 times). Do any Conservatives on this site really think that Rs will lose power in Red states because of their position on healthcare or let's say gun control bills that 90% of the voters support? These are positions that the voters themselves list in higher importance in polling than abortion.

Just because an issue is important to you or is claimed to be of importance by the policy creating elite does not mean that they are held to any actual importance by the voting public or that they swing elections. I get that people on this site want a simple cause and effect explanation for election outcomes but just simply chalking it up to muh abortion doesnt make it true. The explanations on this site for election outcomes are like R L Stine's "Choose your own Adventure" books: If they lose, its cuz of abortion, if its close....it wouldn't of been close cuz of abortion, if they win....its cuz abortion mattered but not enough.

[junior chįmp]

If Andy Beshear were pro-life he'd have won by a 10 pt margin instead of <1.

Lol. This reminds me of when all the polls showed Doug Jones losing to Moore in the AL Senate race....everyone claimed Doug Jones would of been leading if he was pro-life and then he won anyway.

Issue voting is a myth. The idea that Beshear would of won by 10% if he was pro-life is ludicrous. A recent poll by Marist found that 71% of New Yorkers think abortion should only be legal up until 20 weeks yet Cuomo just passed a bill legalizing up till 9 months. Does anyone on here really think that this will cause the Dems to suffer losses in the state?

But then again, what makes abortion such an special issue in that it swings votes while other issues rated higher in importance by the voters themselves according to polling have no effect? We are repeatedly told how health care is the most important issue and how it lost the GOP the House in 2018(well except all those victories in 2010 and 2014 when the GOP voted to repeal ACA 80 times). Do any Conservatives on this site really think that Rs will lose power in Red states because of their position on healthcare or let's say gun control bills that 90% of the voters support? These are positions that the voters themselves list in higher importance in polling than abortion.

Just because an issue is important to you or is claimed to be of importance by the policy creating elite does not mean that they are held to any actual importance by the voting public or that they swing elections. I get that people on this site want a simple cause and effect explanation for election outcomes but just simply chalking it up to muh abortion doesnt make it true. The explanations on this site for election outcomes are like R L Stine's "Choose your own Adventure" books: If they lose, its cuz of abortion, if its close....it wouldn't of been close cuz of abortion, if they win....its cuz abortion mattered but not enough.

There are other single wedge issues, however. It’s mostly Segregation(sometimes in disguise about the court) and/or Corporate Welfare.

Wedge issues dont exist except to that small minority of politically conscious individuals who dictate political issues of the day to the masses. The masses of voters, on the other hand, vote their identity, partisanship, and short term economic conditions without paying any attention to the issues, while political nerds/historians then cook up deep meaning narratives for those election outcomes. (There is none)

Abortion, other than an issue that has caused women to flee the GOP due to the issue conflicting with their identity as women, does not matter as an issue in the sense that there is this mythical mass of voters who are paying attention to it and weighing it above all other issues.

Frankly, this is true for all issues in American history and not just abortion.