Be careful what you ask for
When I moved from California to Wichita, Kan., in the late 1980s, I was frequently reminded that the move would give me “culture shock.”
I tried to ignore folks when they insisted I’d have difficulty slowing down to the pace of native Wichitans.
I felt I’d adapted fairly well. But the one thing I hadn’t been prepared for was the outright strident opposition to abortion that existed in Kansas.
There were anti-abortion billboards everywhere, it seemed.
If there was a ground zero in America’s pro-life movement, it was probably Wichita.
Around that time, Kansas native George Tiller began performing late-term abortions at the medical practice originated by his father.
In 1986, somebody set off a bomb at his clinic.
In 1991, members of the anti-abortion group, Operation Rescue, blockaded three Wichita abortion clinics, including Tiller’s.
In 1993, Tiller was shot, but he survived.
In 2009, Tiller was shot. That time he died.
You’d think that a proposed constitutional amendment put before Kansas voters that would essentially outlaw abortions under any circumstance, may easily win approval.
It didn’t.
Not by a long shot.
Kansas voters voted down the amendment by a whopping 59% to 41% margin.
It was the first solid indication that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, might be energizing women to fight back against states that would like to outlaw abortions altogether.
There’s been a serious uptick in the number of women registering to vote for the upcoming mid-term elections.
Although, that’s not necessarily across the board.
What should be of concern to Republicans around the country is the fact that women aren’t registering in higher numbers where there are chances that, for the time being, abortion rights are safe.
There’s no marked increase in North Carolina where there’s a Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, who’s vowed to protect women’s choice.
There’s only been a relatively small increase in the number of new registrations among women in Maine, where abortions are protected.
The same situation exists in New Mexico, where there’s no remarkable gap between new registrations among men and women. In New Mexico, abortions remain mostly unchanged.
After June 24, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision to end Roe v. Wade, many Republicans thought the abortion issue had been settled.
The opposite appears to be happening.
Women across the country have been energized by it.
So much so, that the Republican control of Congress, which had been considered to be a foregone conclusion, may now be in doubt.
Suddenly, some Republicans who were delighted after President Trump named three staunchly conservative nominees to the Supreme Court are now seeing what happens when you’re not careful what you ask for.
Republicans had hoped to be on the offensive during the run-up to the mid-term elections. They planned to go heavy on the economy, jobs, gas prices, and immigration.
Instead, it appears as if some candidates are playing defense.
Out in Arizona, the Republican candidate trying to unseat Democrat Mark Kelly in the U.S. Senate finds himself in an awkward situation.
It seems Blake Masters got caught backing away from his strident anti-abortion stands.
The message on his website before the state’s primary election was that he was “unapologetically pro-life.” And that he’s for a “federal personhood” law, which would lead to “absolutely no abortions.”
But since the Supreme Court spoke, and Masters won his primary election, he’s definitely changed his rhetoric.
He’s now supporting a federal “ban on late-term (third trimester) abortions.”
A decidedly softer approach.
When his campaign was questioned about Masters’ change in his stands on abortions, his campaign claims the policy section of his website is, get ready for this, a “living document.”
Masters isn’t alone. There are some Republicans who are taking a detour around the issue of abortion since it’s become known that many women have become politically active because of it.
In fact, Trump, who loves to take credit for nominating those three justices, doesn’t seem to mention them much in his current stump speeches.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 50-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.