Abortion ruling might help Republicans

Democrats seem convinced that if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, the decision would provide them with a political lifeline before the November midterm elections. Americans might disapprove of their performance on crime, immigration, inflation, the economy and national security — but when it comes to abortion, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., says Republicans are “on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of the American people.”

Don’t be so sure. If the court’s conservative majority strikes down Roe, Democrats might find that decision not nearly as unpopular as they think.

Yes, polls show that most Americans say they don’t want the high court to overturn Roe. But polls also show that most Americans don’t know what overturning Roe means. A 2019 study reported that 65.7 percent of Americans incorrectly believe that if Roe were overturned, abortion would be illegal everywhere in the United States. It would not. But a Fox News poll released last week finds most Americans agree with the Mississippi abortion law at the heart of the Supreme Court case. The survey found that 54 percent favor state laws banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, except in the case of a medical emergency — exactly what the Mississippi law does — while just 41 percent oppose such a law. This is consistent with the results of a 2018 Gallup poll that found most Americans want abortion restricted to the first trimester, while only 28 percent support allowing abortions in the second trimester and 13 percent in the third trimester.

So, if Roe is overturned, Americans will discover the justices have banned abortion nationwide but have simply upheld the right of states to impose restrictions. That is unlikely to spark the kind of popular outrage Democrats are hoping for.

If the Supreme Court sends abortion decisions back to the states, Democrats will have to own their abortion radicalism. Democrats used to argue that, in

Bill Clinton’s famous phrase, abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” No longer. In 2012, they formally expunged “rare” from their party platform, declaring their support for “safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay.” Polls show that a majority of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion. Yet in 2016 Democrats approved a platform that called for repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortions. To secure the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, Joe Biden had to surrender to the pro-abortion radicals and renounce his more-than-40-year support for the Hyde Amendment.

And in recent years, Democrats have increasingly embraced unfettered abortion access far beyond what the majority of Americans support. In 2019, Democrats in New York lit up the Freedom Tower to celebrate the passage of a new state law that removed almost all restrictions on abortion, while in Illinois, Democrats repealed the state’s Partial Birth Abortion

Ban Act.

The new Democratic orthodoxy is taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand up to the moment of birth — a position supported by a tiny minority of Americans. So, if the battle over abortion moves from the Supreme Court to the states, Democrats will have to fight 15-week abortion bans and defend secondand third-trimester abortion.

If Democrats focus on defending abortion in November, it will backfire. An April EconomistYouGov poll finds that abortion is the most important issue for 4 percent of voters — trailing jobs, the economy, immigration, climate change, national security, health care, taxes and civil rights.

This should come as little surprise. We are experiencing the worst inflation in 40 years, the worst crime wave since the 1990s and the worst border crisis in American history.

Every minute they spending talk about abortion is a minute they don’t spend talking about the issues Americans say they care more about.

Will it energize the Democratic base? Democrats face a massive 17-point enthusiasm gap going into the midterm elections. The last time Republicans demonstrated so much more zeal was in 2010, when Democrats lost more than 60 seats in the House. But abortion might not close that enthusiasm gap in the way Democrats hope. If anything, conservatives might be more galvanized by a Supreme Court decision striking down Roe than liberals — because victory is energizing, while defeat is dispiriting. The pro-life movement would be invigorated because the high court has opened new possibilities to protect the lives of unborn children.

Conservatives know they still have a long way to go to convince every American of the sanctity of unborn life. But they also know they are on the right side of history — and far closer to the sentiments of the American people than Democrats imagine.