Where Abortion Has Taken Center Stage In Primaries Tonight
A leaked Supreme Court draft opinion indicating that five justices may be ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion, has vaulted a typically low-priority issue into the center of several of the primaries we’re tracking tonight. It’s an early sign of how overruling Roe — if that’s where a majority of the justices ultimately land — could reshape the landscape of the midterms.
Two of the most prominent races where abortion has recently come up are in Pennsylvania. The state has a Republican-controlled legislature and a term-limited Democratic governor, which means abortion will remain legal in the short term — but that could change if Republicans win control of the governor’s mansion in November. In his time as governor, Wolf has vetoed several controversial abortion restrictions, including a 2021 law that would have banned abortion in cases of an in-utero Down syndrome diagnosis.
Several Republican candidates have been emphasizing their anti-abortion stances, especially in the governor’s race. This includes Mastriano, who introduced a six-week abortion ban in the Pennsylvania legislature in 2019 and recently said that he would push for an abortion ban without exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. Barletta has also promised to sign “any bill that comes to my desk that would protect the life of the unborn.” Those views might be popular in a primary, but they could come back to haunt the candidates later, since according to the Public Religion Research Institute, 56 percent of Pennsylvanians believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Josh Shapiro, the Democrat who’s running unopposed for his party’s gubernatorial nomination, said that if he’s elected, he would continue to veto abortion bans and restrictions.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Pennsylvania’s Senate primary are also rushing to stake out extreme positions on abortion. Barnette, for instance, revealed during a debate held a few days after the Supreme Court decision was leaked that she was born after her 11-year-old mother was raped, saying, “I was not just a lump of cells.” She was recently endorsed by the Susan B. Anthony List, a prominent anti-abortion group.
Her major opponents both support far-reaching abortion restrictions. McCormick and Oz have both said they support blanket bans on abortion with exceptions only for situations in which the mother’s life is at risk. That’s a shift for Oz, who said in 2019 that while he didn’t support abortion on a personal level, the procedure shouldn’t be restricted further by politicians. The prominence of the issue in the primary is an indicator that if the Supreme Court does overturn Roe v. Wade this term, abortion could be a big issue in the general election.