Abortion bans are only the latest offensive in long-running GOP war on women

The flood of new anti-abortion laws from GOP state lawmakers is aimed squarely at triggering a court fight to overturn Roe v. Wade, now that Donald Trump has appointed conservative, Federalist-Society-chosen justices to the U.S. Supreme Court and equally conservative judges to federal courts.

But this latest round of repressive laws follows a huge number of abortion restrictions passed nearly 10 years ago, when Republicans captured many state houses and governor posts in the 2010 midterm election. Those laws also came in reaction to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which sought to ensure greater coverage of reproductive care for women.

Never mind the fact that two-thirds of Americans want Roe v. Wade left in place, ensuring access to legal abortions. Never mind that similar percentages of men and women in the U.S. have the same attitude of support about abortion. By party, only a plurality of Republicans—48 percent to 45 percent—want to ban abortion completely, while Democrats want to keep it, 87 percent to 11 percent. And this is no surprise: Support for legal abortion is highest among the youngest voters and the most educated voters.

Public support for legal abortion hasn’t really changed all that much in recent years. What has changed is new incendiary language by Republicans, as they spout nonsense about “being born alive,” “protecting abortion survivors,” and “infanticide,” all while trying to strike a holier-than-thou attitude and citing religion as their excuse. But although using such language is an attempt to gin up the evangelical base (or rally the troops at a Trump rally), it does little to change public opinion.

We need to remember that this latest push isn’t the first time Republicans in charge of statehouses passed ultra-restrictive laws. Although some ultimately didn’t survive court challenges, many of the laws passed earlier in the decade remain on the books. For all practical purposes, these laws made abortion unavailable in several states: A Washington Post analysis shows that “Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia each have only one abortion clinic left because of legislative restrictions.”

from Daily Kos http://bit.ly/2YMEHF1