Years ago, in my late twenties, I briefly dated a woman who had once worked in a clinic that performed abortions. She told me that what had struck her the most during that period was the number of women who would emphatically stress that they were personally opposed to abortion while they were in the process of arranging to have one. She told me that they would assert that abortion was immoral, then explain why their case was different, why they were simply in an extraordinary circumstance. I imagine that it never occurred to most of them that for every other woman who gets an abortion, it’s in some sense an extraordinary circumstance. I imagine that it never occurred to them that once you accept the logic of their stated exceptions, you accept it for everyone.
I think most conservative religious types are mentally the exception to their own rules, especially women, because you need to believe in your own humanity in spite of yourself. (Hence so many modern evangelical women framing their devotion to their husbands' comfort as a "choice" or "empowering.") But there are people for whom abortion is still theoretical - people well past child-bearing age who feel strongly about it, for example, and those people vote where the pro-life wind blows pretty reliably. It'll be a rocky election to be sure, but I do like the way the material reality is shifting to show that the "silent majority" does not in fact hate abortion rights.
I think people often cite the extremists on the left who want abortion up to the date of birth. I moved in reproductive rights spaces and I have never met a woman who thinks that just deciding you don't want a baby at 38 weeks gestation is a real world scenario. There are extreme cases where a fetus that a woman might lovingly be expecting is just not suitable for life, at that point she might seek to terminate. Even in those exceptionally rare cases, there is a total of one abortion provider in the US who will perform third trimester abortions.
On the whole, I think that "let people do what they want" is a pretty powerful high ground in American politics. Freedom is still a powerful idea for many people. I think progressives suffer the most when conservatives are able to frame progressive positions as being restrictive of various freedoms. And conservatives lose when progressives are able to frame conservative positions as restrictive.
This doesn't really materialize as support for libertarianism, because people care more about the vibes of freedom than a more intellectually rigorous construction (not to say libertarianism is the only way to rigorously construct freedom). For instance "keep the government's hands off my medicare" is a weirdly resonant position for many people. But "you can get an abortion if you want it" vs "you can't get an abortion" is pretty cut and dry freedom vs unfreedom to most people, and freedom has a big natural advantage, at least here in the US.
Abortion is probably a game changer for low turnout elections that feature a disproportionately high percentage of political partisans.
In 2024 turnout will be higher and the number of normal voters worried about the economy will be higher as a result.
The other issue I would raise is that by next year the issue will largely have been settled. All Dobbs did was kicked the decision back to the individual states and what you see now is those states coming to equilibrium on the issue. Once CA decides on its abortion policy what is there to drive Californian abortion activists to the polls? A desire to change the law in Texas?
From the book "Promises I Can Keep," a really interesting book where the authors interview single mothers:
"As sociologist Kristin Luker shows, many middle-class women view abortion as a personal choice arising from a woman’s right to control her body and her life. Yet most mothers who live in the Philadelphia area’s bleak core typically share a radically different view. Though most concede there are circumstances desperate enough to warrant an abortion, most still view the termination of a pregnancy as a tragedy—perhaps unavoidable but still deeply regrettable. Virtually no woman we spoke with believed it was acceptable to have an abortion merely to advance an educational trajectory. Something else, they say, must be present to warrant that decision—the desertion of the child’s father, an utter lack of support from the young woman’s own mother, rape or incest, an uncontrollable drug or alcohol addiction, homelessness, or impossible financial straits."
I had never heard the term 'revealed preferences,' but it's handy. Everything is different when it's you in the previously untenable position, and the things you vehemently opposed suddenly become a need.
Disability insurance, being unhoused, medicare, assisted suicide, abolishing police, food stamps (SNAP)...I'm sure there are many more ways for life to go wrong and reveal an unexpected preference (or so often, need.) It's why one of the most important parts of building an argument is to think of the exceptions. I don't understand the unwillingness of many people to do the mental exercise of placing themselves or a loved one in the position of being an exception.
I compare American support for abortion to the public's attitude on gun control: large majorities believe in some right to buy a firearm but with reasonable restrictions (no grenade launchers or machine guns). Similarly with abortion the national consensus pre-Dobbs was limits on third trimester abortions with something like 43 out of 50 states banning the procedure.
I have never for a minute believed Republicans actually wanted to overturn Roe. I know many older people (like my parents' friends) who are basically old school liberals, but consider themselves "pro life," so always vote republican, no matter what. I would look at those folks and say, "Okay, if Roe is overturned, why would they still support Republicans?" Admittedly, I have no idea at this point how they're voting, but it wasn't that hard to see how this would turn out overall.
John Oliver showed a Republican politician the other night who supported a total ban until he started hearing from local women and doctors about how the ban was impacting pregnant women who wanted to have their babies but were denied medical care when they needed it most, close to term. He then started learning more about how the health of women with certain medical conditions who couldn't carry to term was being impacted, etc. and his mind began to change.
I've always been extremely pro-choice too and have had a surgical abortion myself (for an ectopic pregnancy, the kind of exception that the extremists know is necessary as they can kill the mother, but would still deny us). We are not the extremists.
This is an extraordinarily perceptive piece with implications far beyond the recent surprises of pro-choice politics. Yes, we do have one set of ideal preferences and another set of revealed preferences. I can recall the 1960s conservative patriots who supported prosecution of the Vietnam War but wanted their sons to remain exempt from the draft. Their boys were “different.”
But aren’t there other permutations of this paradox? We “knew” that socialist politics were a non-starter until Bernie appeared on the scene and drew the support of many, and not only young, people. Now we presumably “know” that such authentically socialist proposals as expropriation of the most oppressive or monopolistic private industries (finance capital, insurance, pharmaceutical, Amazon etc) have no popular support; therefore the Left including the DSA must gag itself or risk losing popularity. Placing those authentically socialist proposals at the center of political discourse might bring surprises. At least, it would change the terms of opposition and make our use of language more honest. I might be wrong, but how will we ever find out with such a timid, purely nominal Left?
I would like to see more energy and resources go to the broader question of women’s health issues such as funded birth control. Why in this age do so many women find themselves in need of an abortion? Would not prévention be better?
Great piece, but I wouldn't say that women only get abortions in extraordinary circumstances - many just don't want to be pregnant. Pregnancy is an enormous physical, financial, and emotional burden, no extraordinary circumstances required.
We live in a world of declining fertility and coming major population loss. Future generations will look at out industrialized slaughter of the unborn and they wouldn't be able to comprehend how such barbarism was allowed to exist. In general, child sacrifice is usually frowned upon by history.
The spectrum of what is acceptable to discuss in our political discourse is so artificially constrained that issues like abortion become a meaningful differentiator. I think if you were to give most American voters a strict either-or choice between legal access to abortions and state-guaranteed healthcare in a level rhetorical playing field, they'd vote for the latter, but that kind of preference doesn't get revealed because neither party is offering it and they're the only game in town.
People enraged over being required to wear a mask or get a vaccine shot are surprised over the number of people opposed to forced pregnancies.
I think most conservative religious types are mentally the exception to their own rules, especially women, because you need to believe in your own humanity in spite of yourself. (Hence so many modern evangelical women framing their devotion to their husbands' comfort as a "choice" or "empowering.") But there are people for whom abortion is still theoretical - people well past child-bearing age who feel strongly about it, for example, and those people vote where the pro-life wind blows pretty reliably. It'll be a rocky election to be sure, but I do like the way the material reality is shifting to show that the "silent majority" does not in fact hate abortion rights.
I think people often cite the extremists on the left who want abortion up to the date of birth. I moved in reproductive rights spaces and I have never met a woman who thinks that just deciding you don't want a baby at 38 weeks gestation is a real world scenario. There are extreme cases where a fetus that a woman might lovingly be expecting is just not suitable for life, at that point she might seek to terminate. Even in those exceptionally rare cases, there is a total of one abortion provider in the US who will perform third trimester abortions.
On the whole, I think that "let people do what they want" is a pretty powerful high ground in American politics. Freedom is still a powerful idea for many people. I think progressives suffer the most when conservatives are able to frame progressive positions as being restrictive of various freedoms. And conservatives lose when progressives are able to frame conservative positions as restrictive.
This doesn't really materialize as support for libertarianism, because people care more about the vibes of freedom than a more intellectually rigorous construction (not to say libertarianism is the only way to rigorously construct freedom). For instance "keep the government's hands off my medicare" is a weirdly resonant position for many people. But "you can get an abortion if you want it" vs "you can't get an abortion" is pretty cut and dry freedom vs unfreedom to most people, and freedom has a big natural advantage, at least here in the US.
Abortion is probably a game changer for low turnout elections that feature a disproportionately high percentage of political partisans.
In 2024 turnout will be higher and the number of normal voters worried about the economy will be higher as a result.
The other issue I would raise is that by next year the issue will largely have been settled. All Dobbs did was kicked the decision back to the individual states and what you see now is those states coming to equilibrium on the issue. Once CA decides on its abortion policy what is there to drive Californian abortion activists to the polls? A desire to change the law in Texas?
From the book "Promises I Can Keep," a really interesting book where the authors interview single mothers:
"As sociologist Kristin Luker shows, many middle-class women view abortion as a personal choice arising from a woman’s right to control her body and her life. Yet most mothers who live in the Philadelphia area’s bleak core typically share a radically different view. Though most concede there are circumstances desperate enough to warrant an abortion, most still view the termination of a pregnancy as a tragedy—perhaps unavoidable but still deeply regrettable. Virtually no woman we spoke with believed it was acceptable to have an abortion merely to advance an educational trajectory. Something else, they say, must be present to warrant that decision—the desertion of the child’s father, an utter lack of support from the young woman’s own mother, rape or incest, an uncontrollable drug or alcohol addiction, homelessness, or impossible financial straits."
I had never heard the term 'revealed preferences,' but it's handy. Everything is different when it's you in the previously untenable position, and the things you vehemently opposed suddenly become a need.
Disability insurance, being unhoused, medicare, assisted suicide, abolishing police, food stamps (SNAP)...I'm sure there are many more ways for life to go wrong and reveal an unexpected preference (or so often, need.) It's why one of the most important parts of building an argument is to think of the exceptions. I don't understand the unwillingness of many people to do the mental exercise of placing themselves or a loved one in the position of being an exception.
I compare American support for abortion to the public's attitude on gun control: large majorities believe in some right to buy a firearm but with reasonable restrictions (no grenade launchers or machine guns). Similarly with abortion the national consensus pre-Dobbs was limits on third trimester abortions with something like 43 out of 50 states banning the procedure.
I have never for a minute believed Republicans actually wanted to overturn Roe. I know many older people (like my parents' friends) who are basically old school liberals, but consider themselves "pro life," so always vote republican, no matter what. I would look at those folks and say, "Okay, if Roe is overturned, why would they still support Republicans?" Admittedly, I have no idea at this point how they're voting, but it wasn't that hard to see how this would turn out overall.
John Oliver showed a Republican politician the other night who supported a total ban until he started hearing from local women and doctors about how the ban was impacting pregnant women who wanted to have their babies but were denied medical care when they needed it most, close to term. He then started learning more about how the health of women with certain medical conditions who couldn't carry to term was being impacted, etc. and his mind began to change.
I've always been extremely pro-choice too and have had a surgical abortion myself (for an ectopic pregnancy, the kind of exception that the extremists know is necessary as they can kill the mother, but would still deny us). We are not the extremists.
This is an extraordinarily perceptive piece with implications far beyond the recent surprises of pro-choice politics. Yes, we do have one set of ideal preferences and another set of revealed preferences. I can recall the 1960s conservative patriots who supported prosecution of the Vietnam War but wanted their sons to remain exempt from the draft. Their boys were “different.”
But aren’t there other permutations of this paradox? We “knew” that socialist politics were a non-starter until Bernie appeared on the scene and drew the support of many, and not only young, people. Now we presumably “know” that such authentically socialist proposals as expropriation of the most oppressive or monopolistic private industries (finance capital, insurance, pharmaceutical, Amazon etc) have no popular support; therefore the Left including the DSA must gag itself or risk losing popularity. Placing those authentically socialist proposals at the center of political discourse might bring surprises. At least, it would change the terms of opposition and make our use of language more honest. I might be wrong, but how will we ever find out with such a timid, purely nominal Left?
I would like to see more energy and resources go to the broader question of women’s health issues such as funded birth control. Why in this age do so many women find themselves in need of an abortion? Would not prévention be better?
A damning ad:
https://x.com/mediumbuying/status/1704479015992447432?s=46&t=U7laPY1hHEa798qtlcpDpA
Great piece, but I wouldn't say that women only get abortions in extraordinary circumstances - many just don't want to be pregnant. Pregnancy is an enormous physical, financial, and emotional burden, no extraordinary circumstances required.
We live in a world of declining fertility and coming major population loss. Future generations will look at out industrialized slaughter of the unborn and they wouldn't be able to comprehend how such barbarism was allowed to exist. In general, child sacrifice is usually frowned upon by history.
The spectrum of what is acceptable to discuss in our political discourse is so artificially constrained that issues like abortion become a meaningful differentiator. I think if you were to give most American voters a strict either-or choice between legal access to abortions and state-guaranteed healthcare in a level rhetorical playing field, they'd vote for the latter, but that kind of preference doesn't get revealed because neither party is offering it and they're the only game in town.