Abortion: Is ‘pro-life’ a losing brand?
Republicans have settled on a remedy for their recent string of abortion-related electoral losses, said Susan Rinkunas in Jezebel. No, they’re not going to scrap the draconian abortion bans in red states, which have resulted in women “nearly bleeding out from miscarriages” and “adolescent rape survivors” seeking out-of-state abortions. Instead, Republicans are going to abstain from using the term “pro-life.” In a recent closed-door Senate meeting, GOP strategists presented polling that shows—15 months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—just how toxic “pro-life” has become. Voters associate the term with total abortion bans that have no exceptions for rape or incest; 56 percent of GOP women now describe themselves as being either pro-choice or somewhere between pro-choice and pro-life. Faced with this grim data, Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) suggested the GOP dump pro-life and adopt “pro-baby.” Voters won’t be fooled by such “linguistic handwaving,” said Amanda Marcotte in Salon. Americans object to religious fundamentalists policing their bodies, not the “words Republicans use.”
The term “pro-life” isn’t dragging down the GOP, said National Review in an editorial. It’s “Republicans who are dragging down the term.” Lawmakers need to do a better job explaining that no antiabortion law should prevent doctors from helping women “in genuinely life-threatening situations.” And the GOP should keep the backlash in perspective: “Every governor who signed pro-life legislation and ran for reelection in 2022 won.” If being pro-life is hurting some Republicans, it’s because Roe’s toppling “revitalized the issue of abortion as a democratic concern,” said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch. Until last year, pro-choice voters who otherwise lean right could vote Republican, knowing that federal judges would knock down most abortion laws. That’s no longer the case, and some leaners “have adjusted accordingly.”
There’s a problem for Republicans considering a branding shift, said Steve Benen in MSNBC.com: their party’s agenda. The GOP has long opposed “pro-baby” federal initiatives, including “new childcare programs, increased food stamps, family-leave programs, and the Affordable Care Act.” What Republicans have is a policy problem, not a branding problem. Even Donald Trump understands the unpopularity of the GOP’s stance, calling Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signing of a six-week abortion ban “terrible.” There is “no magical phrase” that will make such regressive policies palatable.
“The child poverty rate more than doubled in 2022”—because of a conscious decision by Congress, said Catherine Rampell in The Washington Post. The previous year saw child poverty plunge to a record low of 5.2 percent, largely as the result of “one of the most successful anti-poverty programs ever enacted,” the enhanced child tax credit. “Nearly every family with children,” including those too poor to pay income taxes, received monthly checks of up to $300 per child as part of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan during the pandemic. But the program expired last year, and centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin joined Republicans in blocking a provision in Biden’s Build Back Better plan to make it permanent. This year, new Census Bureau statistics reveal, child poverty soared back up to 12.4 percent. Because Manchin and Republicans don’t like “handouts,” they “chose to consign 5 million more kids to poverty.”
The “real story” is that American families “are poorer under Bidenomics,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. The inflation-adjusted median household income fell by $1,750 in 2022—the third consecutive yearly drop. Wages have grown, but because of the worst inflation in 40 years, “real incomes” were lower than in 2019. The temporary infusion of cash provided by the child tax credits and other pandemic stimulus programs contributed to “an inflation surge that gutted real incomes.” Manchin was right to oppose a program that would have cost $1.2 trillion over the next decade. The U.S. doesn’t need more inflationary spending that disproportionately “punishes lower-income Americans.”
All in all, the child tax credit enhancement “did tremendous good for America’s children,” said Matthew Yglesias in his Slow Boring newsletter. Unfortunately, Democrats made it temporary “as a budget gimmick” to lower the overall cost—and when Manchin forced them to pare down Build Back Better, climate initiatives survived the cut and child welfare didn’t. That was “both cruel and stupid,” said Paul Krugman in The New
York Times. “Solid evidence” has shown that aid to poor families helps children grow up to be “healthier, better educated, and more economically self-sufficient.” But “children can’t vote, and poor adults tend not to vote either,” so politicians ignore their needs. Let’s remember that we briefly made “huge strides against child poverty,” to help build “the political will to undo our terrible mistake.”