{"id":2489,"date":"2024-04-24T16:52:57","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T15:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/political-perspectives\/?p=2489"},"modified":"2024-04-24T17:02:09","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T16:02:09","slug":"abortion-and-elections-social-resistance-to-abortion-bans-in-the-us-and-poland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/political-perspectives\/2024\/04\/24\/abortion-and-elections-social-resistance-to-abortion-bans-in-the-us-and-poland\/","title":{"rendered":"Abortion and Elections: Social Resistance to Abortion Bans in the US and Poland"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” fullwidth=”on” next_background_color=”#000000″ global_module=”322″][et_pb_fullwidth_menu global_parent=”322″ _builder_version=”3.0.106″ menu_id=”7″ submenu_direction=”downwards” fullwidth_menu=”off” background_layout=”dark” module_class=”main-navigation” \/][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”off” specialty=”on” prev_background_color=”#000000″ next_background_color=”#1d1d1d”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ specialty_columns=”2″][et_pb_row_inner locked=”off”][et_pb_column_inner type=”4_4″ saved_specialty_column_type=”2_3″][et_pb_post_title _builder_version=”3.0.106″ title=”on” meta=”on” author=”on” date=”on” categories=”on” comments=”on” featured_image=”on” featured_placement=”above” text_color=”dark” text_background=”off” locked=”on” parent_locked=”off” \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.17.6″ background_layout=”light” parent_locked=”off”]<\/p>\n

Daniel J. Schulte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trump faces several hurdles in his 2024 White House bid; in addition to numerous court cases, his position on abortion bans threatens to mobilize oppositional activists and voters. On April 8, Trump stated, \u201cI was proudly the person responsible for ending\u2026Roe v. Wade\u201d (Trump, 2024a). The next day, however, the Arizona Supreme Court controversially brought back an 1864-era state law that bans all abortions except in the case of risk to the mother\u2019s life; the court\u2019s decision replaces the previous 15-week ban and imposes a two-to-five-year prison sentence on physicians caught administering abortions (Billeaud and Lee, 2024). Arizona\u2019s ability to decide its own abortion policy is a consequence of the overturning of Roe v. Wade<\/em>, for which Trump claims credit. However, this unpopular Arizona abortion ban may hurt Trump\u2019s chances of winning. Accordingly, on April 12, Trump posted, \u201cThe Supreme Court in Arizona went too far on their Abortion Ruling, enacting and approving an inappropriate Law from 1864. So now the Governor and the Arizona Legislature must use heart, common sense, and act immediately, to remedy what has happened\u201d (Trump, 2024b). Why did Trump clarify his stance on abortion? Could the abortion issue play a role in shaping the US election results?<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, abortion is a polarizing issue involving moral and philosophical arguments about what is right and wrong. The abortion issue evokes strong emotions in both right and left voters. Restrictive abortion bans can especially mobilize women, independents, and younger voters who might worry about the erosion of women\u2019s rights. On the other hand, Evangelicals and other conservative voters support strong abortion bans, and many supported Trump in 2016 due to his anti-abortion stance (Bleiker, 2020). Since abortion is so contentious, politicians often try to choose a position that garners enough votes without jeopardizing other votes. For this reason, leaders commonly clarify their position in line with public opinion. However, leaders don\u2019t always know how the public will react.<\/p>\n

Last autumn\u2019s election in Poland provides an example where leaders learned after the fact that their abortion position was too unpopular to win. After eight years in government, the right-wing Law and Justice party narrowly lost their re-election bid; the highly unpopular abortion ban is one important reason out of several contributing factors (Sieradzka, 2023). Poland\u2019s previous abortion policy\u2014on the books since 1993\u2014was already very restrictive and only allowed abortion in the case of exceptions including risk to the mother\u2019s life, rape or incest, or fetal deformities(Grzyma\u0142a-Busse, 2015). After all, Poland is a country where 71% of the population identifies as Roman Catholic (Tilles, 2023a). However, in 2020 Law and Justice party-appointed judges on the Constitutional Tribunal court voted to make the abortion policy even more restrictive by removing the fetal deformity exception (Ciobanu 2020). This court ruling provoked nation-wide protests (Tronina and Kazmierska, 2023). Tellingly, after losing the election, the former Law and Justice prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, stated, \u201cThe application to the Constitutional Tribunal in this case was a mistake\u201d (Tilles, 2023b).<\/p>\n

The former prime minister likely considered the court ruling a political \u201cmistake\u201d because voters mobilized on the issue to throw Law and Justice out of government. Indeed, the Law and Justice\u2019s vote share of 35.4% in 2023 decreased eight percentage points from 43.6% in 2019 (Guerra and Casal Bertoa, 2023). Opposition parties such as the Third Way, the New Left, and the Civic Coalition all ran on more permissive abortion policy platforms (Tronina and Kazmierska, 2023) and gained votes at the expense of Law and Justice. Women voters and young voters were especially decisive in throwing Law and Justice out of power (Rainsford, 2023). Voter turnout of 74.4% in the 2023 election was the highest since the fall of communism and up by nearly 12% points over the 2019 election (Guerra and Casal Bertoa, 2023).<\/p>\n

It is to be seen whether the Republican Party follows a trajectory like that of Law and Justice. You could argue, perhaps, that the Republicans already learned about the social resistance to the abortion bans in the November 2022 midterms; after all, some analysts attribute the lack of a \u201cred wave\u201d to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization <\/em>Supreme Court decision, which overturned federal protections for abortion access in June 2022 (Kann, Ebanks, Morrier & Alvarez 2024). Perhaps, Trump\u2019s clarifying statement about the Arizona Supreme Court ruling is his attempt to strike a more \u201cmoderate\u201d position. However, Trump\u2019s ability to distance himself from Arizona\u2019s abortion ban is limited by the fact that he has proudly branded himself as the \u201cperson responsible for overturning\u2026Roe v. Wade\u201d (Trump 2024a). Similarly, Law and Justice party leadership had a difficult time distancing themselves from the 2020 Constitutional Tribunal ruling that further tightened Poland\u2019s abortion policy.<\/p>\n

In both countries, the courts\u2019 rulings on abortion (Dobbs <\/em>in the US and the Constitutional Tribunal ruling in Poland) transformed the political environment. Prior to those court rulings, taking a strong rhetorical stance against abortion may have been a winning position for Republicans in 2016 and Law and Justice in 2015 and 2019. However, once these conservative parties succeeded in using the courts to restrict abortion legally further, they became targets for activists and opposition parties to mobilize voters against the guys who took away women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n

In the upcoming 2024 US election, the abortion issue may likely play a disproportionate role in key \u201cswing states.\u201d Many \u201cswing states\u201d have abortion bans or restrictive abortion policies that might provide the impetus for campaigns and activists to mobilize voters to support more permissive women\u2019s rights policies. Since the races are already so tight, the mobilization of even a small percentage of voters who would otherwise not vote could be enough to sway the results. Florida already has an abortion referendum scheduled for November, and Arizona and Nevada may follow suit with similar referendums (Mulvihill and Kruesi, 2024). Although the 2024 election outcome is uncertain, abortion policy is shaping up to be an important factor just as it was in the 2023 Polish election.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Billeaud, J, and M. Lee. 2024. \u201cWhat to Know about Abortion in Arizona under the Near-total 1864 Ban,\u201d https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/arizona-abortion-ban-what-to-know-797a4bbbc738497fe2284d6870c5be24<\/a> . Accessed April 15, 2024.<\/p>\n

Bleiker, C. 2020. \u201cEvangelicals: Trump\u2019s Anti-abortion Base,\u201d https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/us-2020-election-abortion-evangelicals-donald-trump\/a-55159590<\/a>. Accessed April 16, 2024.<\/p>\n

Ciobanu, C. 2020. \u201cConstitutional Tribunal Ruling Makes Abortion Practically Illegal in Poland,\u201d https:\/\/balkaninsight.com\/2020\/10\/22\/constitutional-tribunal-ruling-makes-abortion-practically-illegal-in-poland\/<\/a>. Accessed April 15, 2024.<\/p>\n

Grzyma\u0142a-Busse, A. 2015. Nations under God: How churches use moral authority to influence policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n

Guerra, S, and F. Casal Bertoa. 2023. \u201cWhat we Learned from the 2023 Polish Election,\u201d https:\/\/blogs.lse.ac.uk\/europpblog\/2023\/10\/24\/what-we-learned-from-the-2023-polish-election\/<\/a>. Accessed April 15, 2024.<\/p>\n

Kann, C, Ebanks,\u00a0D, Morrier,\u00a0J, and R. Alvarez. 2024. \u201cPersuadable Voters Decided the 2022 Midterm: Abortion Rights and Issues-based Frameworks for Studying Election Outcomes,\u201d PLOS ONE 19(1): 1-23.<\/p>\n

Mulvihill, G, and K. Kruesi. 2024. \u201cWhich states could have abortion on the ballot in 2024?,\u201d https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/abortion-ballot-amendment-ban-protection-states-2024-052ff9846f8416efb725240af22b92ec<\/a>. Accessed April 15, 2024.<\/p>\n

Rainsford, S. 2023. \u201cPoland Elections: Women and Youth Force PiS from Power,\u201d https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-europe-67156864<\/a>.\u00a0 Accessed April 16, 2024.<\/p>\n

Sieradzka, M. 2023. \u201cWere Women Key to Voting out Poland\u2019s Ruling Conservatives?,\u201d https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/were-women-key-to-voting-out-polands-ruling-conservatives\/a-67214867<\/a>. Accessed April 15, 2024.<\/p>\n

Tilles, D. 2023a. \u201cProportion of Catholics in Poland Falls to 71%, New Census Data Show,\u201d \u00a0https:\/\/notesfrompoland.com\/2023\/09\/29\/proportion-of-catholics-in-poland-falls-to-71-new-census-data-show\/<\/a>. Accessed April 15, 2024.<\/p>\n

Tilles, D. 2023b. \u201cPushing for Abortion Ban was a \u201cMistake\u201d, admits Polish Prime Minister,\u201dhttps:\/\/notesfrompoland.com\/2023\/11\/06\/pushing-for-abortion-ban-was-a-mistake-admits-polish-prime-minister\/<\/a>.\u00a0 Accessed April 15, 2024.<\/p>\n

Tronina, D, and K. Kazmierska. 2023. \u201cAbortion Rights and Election Campaigns: the Case of Poland,\u201d https:\/\/blogs.lse.ac.uk\/gender\/2023\/10\/11\/abortion-rights-and-election-campaigns-the-case-of-poland\/<\/a>. Accessed April 16, 2024.<\/p>\n

Trump, D. 2024a. \u201cAddress on Abortion,\u201d https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/112235238031827342<\/a>. Accessed April 15, 2024.<\/p>\n

Trump, D. 2024b. \u201cTruth Social Post on Arizona Supreme Court Abortion Ruling,\u201d https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/112259523897710004<\/a>.\u00a0 Accessed April 15, 2024.<\/p>\n

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Bio<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/h2>\n

Dr. Daniel J. Schulte is an associate lecturer in the Department of Political Science, at University College London. His research interests include morality politics, authoritarianism, women’s rights, democratic backsliding, and methods.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For more about his research, you can find him on his website: https:\/\/danieljschulte.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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