For having made the criminalization of abortion the heart of their political project since the 1970s, and for having finally succeeded in having the Supreme Court overturn the judgment Roe v. wade in June 2022, the Republicans find themselves trapped in their ultraconservative drift. It is an understatement to say that the revocation of Roe v. Wade shocked public opinion, with poll after poll saying that more than 60% of Americans believe the right to abortion should be recognized in most case. Prisoners of their ultra-religious fringe — and of Donald Trump — the Republicans, as disconnected ideologues, still do not take the measure of the social and electoral mobilization that the invalidation of Roe v. wade sparked, continuing to stick to hardline anti-abortion stances that reek of disregard for women and their health.
The signals sent during the mid-term elections last November should have made them aware of the risks hanging over them. But they remain blind to it. If the Republicans managed to regain the majority in the House of Representatives, they did otherwise less well than expected on the whole, on the one hand because of radical and/or incompetent candidates dubbed by Mr. Trump, another because of electoral sanction in retaliation for the invalidation of the judgment Roe who had protected the constitutional right to abortion for 50 years. In fact, one of the most striking results of these legislative elections will have been that in the States where modifications to their Constitution were proposed by referendum, the defense of the right to abortion prevailed everywhere. Voters in California, Michigan and Vermont have thus taken clear and consistent action by choosing to enshrine the right to abortion in their Constitution. An even clearer demonstration of mobilization than Roe provoked, two conservative, Republican-controlled states, Montana and Kentucky, voted against more restrictive measures.
Never mind, the Republican Party persists and signs against all electoral common sense, attacking without compromise wherever possible, in legislative assemblies as before the courts, the freedom of women to choose. In the wake of the midterm elections, its governing body, the RNC (Republican National Committee), had invited elected officials and Republican governors to “adopt the strongest possible pro-life legislation”. It was widely heard. The very anti-abortion state of Idaho recently enacted a law punishing anyone who helps a minor leave the state to have an abortion without parental consent with up to five years in prison. In South Carolina, Republicans have introduced a bill making abortion murder, and therefore punishable by death. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s expected rival for the Republican nomination, is preparing to sign a law banning almost all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. What the majority of Floridians disagree with, but what the hard core and reactionary Republican activists demand.
On the legal front, the recent decision by a Texas judge to invalidate the use of the abortion pill, authorized by the American Medicines Agency (FDA) for 23 years and used by 500,000 American women each year, further illustrates the amplitude of the setbacks induced by the Supreme Court’s decision. Either, the FDA appealed as it should. Still, we find ourselves here in full authoritarian deviation: everywhere and all the time, the Republicans use the ballot box and the courts to try to impose their antisocial and antidemocratic views. We can not really rejoice that this is a party that loses the compass to the advantage of the Democrats. Since to lose all sense of moderation, to expel as they have just done two black members of the Legislative Assembly of Tennessee who were campaigning for gun control while the shootings in the American streets are multiplying, it is a party that is gaining in dangerousness and political violence, condemned to defend its backyard by ” gerrymandering “.
Another invitation to refocus was sent to him just last week, the same day that Trump was impeached in New York, by the election to the Supreme Court in the pivotal state of Wisconsin of the pro justice. -abortion Janet Protasiewicz, by an 11-point margin, against the ultra Daniel Kelly. What remains of “moderate” voices among Republicans who see 2024 coming, this defeat sends shivers down the spine. “To sink into extremism, we will continue to lose,” warned Nancy Mace, a representative from South Carolina. It would be useful to American political life, and not only to the Republicans, that she be heard.