Republican strategists are exploring a shift away from āpro-lifeā messaging on abortion after consistent Election Day losses for the GOP when reproductive rights were on the ballot.
At a closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans this week, the head of a super PAC closely aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., presented poll results that suggested voters are reacting differently to commonly used terms like āpro-lifeā and āpro-choiceā in the wake of last yearās Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, said several senators who were in the room.
The polling, which NBC News has not independently reviewed, was made available to senators Wednesday by former McConnell aide Steven Law and showed that āpro-lifeā no longer resonated with voters.
āWhat intrigued me the most about the results was that āpro-choiceā and āpro-lifeā means something different now, that people see being pro-life as being against all abortions ā¦ at all levels,ā Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said in an interview Thursday.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said the polling made it clear to him that more specificity is needed in talking about abortion.
āMany voters think [āpro-lifeā] means youāre for no exceptions in favor of abortion ever, ever, and āpro-choiceā now can mean any number of things. So the conversation was mostly oriented around how voters think of those labels, that theyāve shifted. So if youāre going to talk about the issue, you need to be specific,ā Hawley said Thursday.
Yes the specific marketing term for it is what people arenāt resonating with. That must be what is wrong.
Yes. In Republican eyes what you said is literally correct.
The long-term goal of Republican leadership is to ban all abortion from the moment of conception, ban all hormonal birth control (because it can prevent implantation of a fertilized embryo and therefore cause abortion), and return the question of whether to ban condoms and other barrier methods to the states.
Republican leadership realizes the American people donāt support a complete abortion ban.
Republican leadership believes the American people are wrong and itās their responsibility, as Christian leaders, to protect the innocent children of America and impose a complete abortion ban anyway.
And Republican leaders know if they go hood off and call for a complete abortion ban theyāll lose power in the backlash and abortion will become even more normalized.
So theyāre gradually restricting abortion rights while heavily pushing right-wing propaganda to children and teenagers - fucking PragerU is partnering with the Florida and Oklahoma Departments of Education to produce videos for school children, did you know that? - in order to shift the cultural consensus away from abortion is a right and towards abortion is a sin so that future generations of Republican leaders can complete their work and impose a total abortion ban.
So, yes, the Republican leadership is very much aware that what they need is marketing. They know abortion bans are unpopular. Theyāre walking a fine line, trying to work towards a highly unpopular policy goal while still protecting their legislative control of Congress and the states, knowing their control of government would be at risk if the American people realized their actual policy goal.
And so you have Republicans talking about āpro-baby policiesā now. Because who doesnāt love babies? That sounds like WIC and infant nutrition programs and daycare and better neonatal care and all those good things that Democrats support. Hard to tell that the Republican is actually talking about forcing women to give birth to babies dead in the womb and babies with fetal defects incompatible with life, but thatās the state of the national dialogue in the year of our Lord 2023.
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Right?!?! Couldnāt be the policies.