Can We Show Compassion on the Abortion Issue? The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Survey Finds a Strong No-Go Theorem
Strong majorities of Americans oppose laws banning medication abortion, disagree with judges overturning Food and Drug Administration approval of prescription drugs, don’t have much confidence in the Supreme Court and don’t think justices should serve lifetimes appointments, according to the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released Monday.
The finding come as the Supreme Court left in place — for now — access to the drug mifepristone, which is used in early stage abortions. Although the drug is unlikely to be the last word, challenges relating to it are scheduled to come before the high court as soon as next year, in the middle of a presidential election.
The Friday decision also comes nearly a year after the Supreme Court overturned the guaranteed right to an abortion in this country with its Dobbs ruling — and sent an earthquake through U.S. politics.
The original Texas ruling, and legislative efforts like it in red states, have split Republican elected officials. Most Republicans on Capitol Hill were silent about the decision except for a few ardent opponents of abortion rights who thought it went too far.
Nancy Mace said on CNN that they are getting it wrong on the issue. Women who have been raped have to be shown some compassion. We’ve got to show compassion on the abortion issue because, by and large, the — most of Americans aren’t with us on this issue.”
Why do judges feel the courts? The most confident Americans in the U.S. Supreme Court compared to the majority of independents and Democrats in Marist
6 in 10 said they think judges shouldn’t be able to overturn approvals from the FDA, up from 39% who said they should.
Six in 10 respondents said they have not very much or no confidence in the Supreme Court, continuing a trend of declining trust in the once-vaunted institution.
They only think that they have a small amount of confidence in the court. It’s the lowest level of confidence in the poll in the five years Marist has been asking the question.
There is a clear divide by party, however. A majority of Republicans (53%) do have confidence in the court, but only 39% of independents and 24% of Democrats do.
This court has delivered conservative decision after conservative decision, from guns and voting rights to the rights of the LGBTQ community.
The Republican women are the main reason for that. A small majority of GOP men support lifetime appointments, but less than half of GOP women do.
The Suburban Women Problem: The Politics of Abortion in Texas and the Democrat Party of South Carolina, as Revisited by Rachel Vindman
In Round Rock, Tiffany is located north of the capital, Austin. She describes herself as a conservative Christian most of the time. Abortion is not just a political issue for her, it’s also a moral issue. She says she wouldn’t consider it for herself. The government interfering in these decisions has a problem withSheffield.
There is no right or wrong for me to tell her otherwise, she said. I think when government gets too involved we end up having a lot of other social issues.
Suburban women aren’t the most likely to vote for a candidate, she said. “But I think women in general as voters and women who have issues that are going to start hitting their households should not be underestimated by either party. So, these women can be mobilized and it’s a strong mobilizing force.”
That’s no more evident than in Texas which has been ground zero for abortion restrictions. The state has had some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country for years now. Since it passed a six-week abortion ban in 2021, the Supreme Court has upheld it, despite the fact that the novel enforcement method was not seen favorably by the court.
Rachel Vindman co-hosts a podcast called The Suburban Women Problem, which she says is a reference to something South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told Fox News ahead of the 2018 midterms.
“We’ve got to address the suburban women problem, because it’s real,” Graham said, after the network projected Republicans would lose control of the House of Representatives.
Vindman says that the Republican Party’s policies of shutting down access to abortion are unpopular with suburban women because they go too far.
“It falls into this extremism as a whole,” she said. I was a Republican for a long time. And what used to be part of the Republican Party for a long time. Individual responsibility and a smaller government used to be a part of the conservative movement.
Rebecca Deen, a political science professor at UT Arlington, says these more extreme policies have also made the issue of abortion more salient. Voters are more likely to think about it when they hear about it.
“Politicians doing things, being in the news, and so the thing they might want to be settled, is just more talked about, and so it becomes more problematic for voters,” she explained.