A win-win: Kansas upholds abortion rights.
Abortion rights advocates see this as a win. Many constitutional conservatives do, as well.
Kansas voters were the first to cast ballots on abortion rights since Roe V. Wade was overturned in June. While this is widely seen as a victory for abortion rights advocates, there's much more to this story.
The election in Kansas affirmed that there are relatively few conservatives who hold the opinion that no abortions should be allowed, even in pregnancies that endanger the health of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest. While many conservatives see abortion as taking the life of a person, there is something else that many conservatives are even more passionate about:
The constitution.
The Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe V. Wade, has two ramifications:
Near term: In many places, it makes it more difficult, or near impossible, for some women to get an abortion.
Long term: It opens the door for abortion to be settled, once and for all, in America.
The left makes political gains by exploiting fear, especially on social issues. One of their most important social issues, for the last 50 years, has been abortion.
On the surface, women losing access to abortion seems like a huge deal to the left. However, losing access to the abortion rights crisis, would be a catastrophic blow to the left.
Liberal scholars and strategists are well aware of the problem with Roe V. Wade, or any other supreme court decision, being the "law of the land". However, you don't have to be a scholar to understand the basics:
There are two types of constitutional decisions: ones that cite and affirm explicit constitutional rights, and ones that interpret rights based on constitutional principles. For the most part, decisions that affirm explicit rights are always upheld. In contrast, decisions that determine rights based on interpretation of text and principles, are always at risk of being overturned by new interpretations.
According to the constitution, there are three proper ways to settle abortion:
We can add abortion to the constitution. Doing this would make it a constitutional right. The process to amend the constitution is democratic.
We can codify abortion rights federally. Following our democratic process, we can make federal laws that preserve abortion rights.
We can codify abortion rights at the state level. Following each state's democratic process, states can make laws that preserve abortion rights for their citizens.
There is one other way to preserve abortion rights:
We can have the supreme court rule, based on interpretation, to preserve abortion rights. This process is NOT democratic.
If the left, along with everyone else, knows that the supreme court cannot make a ruling on abortion which can't be overturned, why do they fight so hard to have this battle in the courts?
The answer is simple: More than the left wants to preserve abortion rights, they want to preserve the abortion rights crisis.
As is the case with many issues, progressives' actions undermine their purported purpose. If they really wanted to solve abortion, they would focus solely on doing it democratically.
I believe the Kansas decision should have leadership on the left very concerned:
It reveals that conservatives, as a whole, actually aren't hell-bent on stopping every single abortion.
It serves to pacify their base. The more this happens, the less ability they will have to take advantage of fear.
It shows the democratic process can work. If it can work in Kansas for abortion rights, it can probably work almost anywhere. Again, this undermines the ability for the media, and leaders on the left, to stoke and capitalize on fear.
In the end, I believe abortion will be regulated in a way that is sensible in most states. A few blue states will allow killing infants the moment before they are born. A few red states will have laws that seem too restrictive (although I doubt, in the long term, any state will ban all abortions).
In Kansas, the purpose of the constitution, that the laws be decided by the people, has been upheld and demonstrated. Even more than conservatives want to prevent abortion, they want the democratic process to play out. Even more than they want to preserve abortion rights, liberals must do everything possible to keep the abortion debate in crisis.
This morning, in Kansas, the bigger win is for conservatives.