ICYMI: GOP’s Terrible Record On Women’s Health Care “Could Hurt Republicans in 2022 Midterms”

New reporting from USA Today and The Hill confirms that Republicans’ toxic record on women’s health care “could hurt Republicans in 2022 midterm elections.” 

Experts agree that Texas’ six-week abortion ban and other Republican-led anti-abortion efforts “could spell trouble” for the GOP and even Republican pollsters admit that “‘Republicans have been bleeding support among suburban women…(Texas) makes that problem worse, not better.’” 

Meanwhile, Democrats are calling out the GOP’s ongoing efforts to try and strip away health care coverage from women and families, highlighting how reproductive health care is on the ballot in 2022.

Read more:

USA Today: Texas abortion law could hurt Republicans in 2022 midterm elections, experts say
By Savannah Behrmann and Phillip M. Bailey
September 9, 2021

Key Points:

• Conservatives were handed a victory when the Supreme Court sided with Texas Republicans in not blocking the most restrictive abortion law in the nation – in one of the United States’ largest red states…It was met with a dim response from high-profile conservatives, most of whom didn’t publicly celebrate the law that experts said could spell trouble for congressional Republicans when voters head to the polls next year.

• “Republicans have been bleeding support among suburban women throughout the Trump era,” Republican pollster Whit Ayers told USA TODAY. “(Texas) makes that problem worse, not better.”

• Asked whether the Supreme Court should “overturn” abortion or “let it stand” a month before the 2020 president contest, 62% of likely voters in a Fox News poll said the high court should let it remain.

• A Quinnipiac University poll released during that time period found 66% of likely voters said they agreed with the 1973 decision establishing a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. And a Kaiser Family Foundation poll published in October 2020 showed 69% of Americans disagree with overturning Roe, including 76% of independents.

• All the while, abortion is top-of-mind for voters. 

• Gallup reported 47% of those polled in May, months before the Supreme Court’s decision, said the issue of abortion will be one of the most important factors in voting for a candidate of a major office. 

• USA TODAY reached out to the Republican party’s campaign arms for comment or direction to public statements and was told none were available. 

• The Texas law will likely play a role in next year’s battle for the Senate where there is currently a 50-50 party breakdown.

• Democrats see the Texas law as a way to remind voters of the importance of the Supreme Court — and how Senate control plays into that longer game.

• Jazmin Vargas, the national press secretary for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said Democrats plan on highlighting the abortion ruling over the Texas law and the Supreme Court’s power in the midterm elections.

• “The freedom for women to make our own health care decisions is on the ballot in 2022 and in key Senate battleground states. Democrats will be holding Republican Senate candidates accountable for their anti-choice record and we will be reminding voters of the stakes in next year’s election – and why we must defend a Democratic Senate majority with the power to confirm or reject Supreme Court justices,” she said in a statement to USA TODAY.

The Hill: Democrats, Planned Parenthood say reproductive health care is on 2022 ballot
By Celine Castronuovo
September 8, 2021

Key Points:

• Democratic leaders and Planned Parenthood executives joined together to condemn the Supreme Court’s decision not to block Texas’s controversial abortion law, arguing that “reproductive health care is on the ballot” in the 2022 midterm elections.

• In a series of statements, which were first reported by Politico on Wednesday, Democrats and abortion rights activists took aim at the recent implementation of the so-called fetal heartbeat law in Texas that bans abortions from being carried out after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can occur as early as six weeks.

• “​​Right now, Texans are being forced to drive and fly hundreds and in some cases thousands of miles to access abortion — basic health care that is their right,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement.

• “With the right to safe, legal abortion in grave danger across the country, there is no doubt that reproductive rights will be on the ballot in 2022,” she said.

• Harrison argued that “politics has no place in one of the most personal health care decisions a person can make, and every Republican lawmaker will have to answer for this unprecedented assault on the constitutional right to privacy.”

• Christie Roberts, director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, also called the Texas law an “all-out attack on reproductive health care” that “is bringing this issue front and center in the 2022 midterm campaign.”

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