The headline from the mid-term election in the United States was that the red wave failed to materialise. The Democrats held the Senate. The Republicans did win the House but by a much smaller margin that polls had predicted. In addition to this, there was voter approval of liberal abortion laws in some states.
The American Conservative explains: “Abortion, and all its sundry offshoots, will retain protected status in the United States. Five key ballot proposals on abortion were decided on Tuesday night. California, Vermont, Montana, Kentucky, and Michigan all weighed in favour of fewer limits on abortion, with even red Kentucky knocking down a proposal to specify that the state constitution does not protect a right to abortion.”
The piece continues: “Montana narrowly declined to recognize the rights, including the right to medical care, of a child born from a partial or botched abortion.”
Vermont, California and Michigan all enshrined a fundamental right to an abortion in its state constitution.
This was not just a bad night for Republicans, it was a very bad night for the unborn child. Pro-life activists always new that some states were ultra-liberal in their attack on the unborn child. Brits and Europeans could be forgiven for believing that abortion was made completely illegal in the US, given the hysterical coverage by the mainstream media of the Supreme Court decision to overturn of Roe v Wade. However, Dobbs only returned the issue of the abortion to the States. Sadly, some states have decided that abortion should remain legal, even up to birth.
Pro-life activists face an uphill battle, even in reliably red states, to convince their neighbours that unborn children deserve protection.
The American Conservative again, “Even more telling were the results in Kentucky, which spans both the Rust Belt and the Bible Belt, and where the measure to restrict abortion failed by six percentage points. This is the same state that went for Trump by 62 per cent to Biden’s 36 per cent in 2020.”
However, we should not lose heart: pro-life activists in the United States are fighters. For decades they were told there was no chance of Roe v Wade being overturned. Then Dobbs was decided. For 25 years pro-life campaigners marched at the National March for Life in Washington DC and they will do so again in 2023. Only this time, they must take their fight to each individual state. Sadly, this year the 2023 Youth Rally and Mass for Life has been cancelled after a consultation, saying attention will turn to the state’s march for Life. The Archdiocese of Washington however does encourage groups traveling to Washington D.C. to participate in the National March for Life at the National Mall and to attend the Vigil Mass at The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
One very noticeable dividing line between the two parties was the “marriage divide”. Single women overwhelming voted for Democrats, no doubt rallied by the abortion issue, while married women voted for Republicans. This is going to have a huge impact in the future, as the marriage rate continues to decline in the US. Gone are the days when the Democrat party represented working class family interests. Today, it is the highly educated single men and women, “the me, myself and I, generation” who vote Democrat and trust them to protect their interests.
This can only be bad news for families, women and children as their interests will become ever more marginalised.
On the other side this could represent an opportunity for the Republican party. They have long been seen as defending the interests of large corporations and the ultra-wealthy. To avoid electoral oblivion now it is time for the GOP to promote and adopt pro-family policies, starting with defending the right of the unborn and continuing on to support policies that benefit middle and low-income families. These are the women and men taking care of the next generation. They are not part of Generation Me than now belong to the Democrats.
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