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**MAY 16, 2022**
Kuttner on TAP
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**** Alito Outs and Splits the Republicans
His draft opinion overturning 'Roe' has the anti-abortion
movement in frantic damage control mode. Will the spin work?
Until the leak of Justice Samuel Alito's draft decision May 2,
overturning
**Roe v. Wade**, Republican state legislators were on a roll, enacting
ever more draconian laws interfering with women's health in the name
of the rights of a fetus. The repeal of
**Roe** would explicitly allow all of this, and more.
In Texas, doctors are reporting that the state's recent law is making
it much more difficult to treat women after a miscarriage
.
The doctor is made responsible for assuring that the miscarriage
wasn't actually a deliberate abortion, and becomes an agent of a
police state
rather than a caregiver to women.
In Louisiana
,
legislation was fast-tracked to define a woman who had an abortion as a
murderer, vulnerable to prosecution for homicide. Republicans and their
allies in the anti-abortion movement, enraged about the possibility of
sanctuary states helping women from jurisdictions that prohibit
abortion, have been planning national legislation to prohibit abortion
everywhere
.
But the leak of the Alito draft has thrown the Republican propaganda
machine abruptly into reverse. Polling shows that most voters outside
hardcore "right to life" country are appalled by such measures. So the
GOP is frantically trying to brand itself as kinder and gentler to
women, even to women who have abortions.
Following a flash round of polling, the NRSC put out talking points
,
including this whopper: "Republicans DO NOT want to throw doctors and
women in jail. Mothers should be held harmless under the law." But of
course Republicans in several states do hold doctors criminally
responsible, and some would prosecute women as well.
After frantic consultations, the Louisiana bill was quickly pulled
and killed. The head of the National Right to Life Committee went on a
charm offensive, terming women who have abortions as victims worthy of
compassion. Several anti-abortion groups have put out a letter
urging states not to criminalize actions of women.
This raises some intriguing questions. First, will voters see through
this patent BS?
Second, will Republican message discipline hold? For every Republican
willing to trim the party's story on abortion, there is another who
wants to double down on punitive measures. It is the purists who will
end up in Democrats' campaign ads, embarrassing GOP candidates trying
to downplay the entire party's extremism on women's health.
Thanks to Alito's zealotry, Republicans have outed themselves. They
are caught between what they really believe and the dread knowledge that
most Americans don't agree with them.
****
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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CLAIRE WANG
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