Analysis: The GOP’s newfound abortion dilemma on rape and incest
Wednesday, this is a significant departure from how the highest-profile Republicans have spoken about this issue for decades. Even Donald Trump, who ran in 2016 in part on nominating justices to overturn Roe , emphasized his exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the motheropposed rape and incest exceptions
. But along with the broader issue of banning abortion, this may now transition from the abstract to the real world. And in a party like the GOP that has lurched to the right in the Trump era and placed such an emphasis on appealing to the furthest parts of the right wing, there will surely be plenty of pressure to go there.
As some of the above quotes reinforce, opposing rape and incest exceptions is in some ways the logical extension of the position the party has staked out on abortion: If it’s a moral wrong tantamount to murder, that remains true regardless of the circumstances of the pregnancy. But that doesn’t mean the American public more broadly agrees with that position, however rhetorically consistent. One of the most recent polls to ask about this specific issue, a Quinnipiac University survey from late last year, found that just. And even Republicans opposed making it illegal in those circumstances by a 2-to-1 margin.Nationally, polls generally find that between 1 in 10 and 3 in 10 people say abortion should always be illegal, depending upon how you ask the question.
That poll is a nice distillation of the dilemma in front of Republicans. The law at issue in the Supreme Court actually isn’t an outright ban but Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks. And the same poll found that more than 6 in 10 would support at least that restriction. (Polls have in the past shown similar numbers support