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“Republicans struggle as they keep getting forced to talk about abortion” — Politico headline, Dec. 15 Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Huh! It turns out “Well, with luck, you probably won’t die being forced to give birth to a nonviable fetus over the objections of your doctor!” — even if you say it in a warm, human-sounding way ― is not actually what people want to hear when deciding how to cast their votes. Fascinating!
People keep hearing stories like that of Kate Cox, whose medically recommended abortion to end a nonviable pregnancy and preserve her fertility was shut down by the Texas Supreme Court, and saying, “Wait, is that actually your policy? Jesus!” and it turns out that “Yup!” or “Pretty much!” is not a winning answer. Also not great: “Please hold while the Supreme Court figures out if it wants to impose even more restrictions on what medical care you are allowed to receive!”
Nikki Haley said “we have to humanize the situation,” which, I guess, are words! “So, you want a 13-year-old to be forced to bear her rapist’s baby at tremendous physical and emotional cost?” has one easy answer: “No!” And if you aren’t allowed to say that, that’s a problem! A messaging problem, of course.
“Wait, you seriously don’t want any exceptions, and you are going to weaponize government against people with reasonable medical needs?” is a question to which “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it” is not a great answer. Or maybe they could stop trying to dehumanize half the population? No. It’s the words. It’s got to be the words.
There’s no changing the underlying policy. That’s out of the question! It’s just unfortunate that so many people see these stories of people struggling to get their abortions and say, “That could be me!” The time-tested Republican response of, “Nonsense! You don’t have a uterus!” only works about 50 percent of the time. If it fails, they are stuck saying things such as “Yikes!” and “Woof!” and “With a condition like that, are you sure you should be voting?”
I wonder why this is so difficult to talk about! Maybe what Republicans need is a better slogan. “Sometimes, too many rights are actually a burden” and “Do you ever get tired of making decisions for yourself?” and “Relax: We’ve got it! But let us know if you think you’re bleeding to death” turn out not to be winners, as far as slogans go. Same for, “You Don’t Get a Say, and We Don’t Care if You Die,” even if you say it with a lot of warm eye contact. Also bad: “You Don’t Get a Say, We Will Laugh at What Your Doctor Says, and We Want You to Do Everything But Die.”
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Maybe they should add some exclamation points at the end to make it clear there are no hard feelings! Or try the TikTok approach of calling these “Girl Rights!” like “Girl Dinner!” but it’s a plate of just one or two rights, not enough to support a whole person?