Mar 28, 2024 2 min read

The Republican Party is officially opposed to abortion. This culminated in the 2022 Dobbs decision that reversed Roe vs. Wade, which conservatives had been trying to do since Roe was decided in 1973.

Initially, former President Donald Trump and his allies took credit for Dobbs, as they should, because it was Trump’s three Supreme Court justices appointed in his one term that made the difference. U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell gets a big assist for overturning Roe vs. Wade because he blocked an appointee by President Obama nine months prior to the 2016 presidential election, but reversed himself and pushed through a Trump appointee just before the 2020 election.

However, some in the GOP are currently trying to downplay the Dobbs decision for the most cynical reason.

Dobbs kicked the issue back to the states to decide, and many states acted legislatively to ban or sharply curtail access to abortion. Making it a state decision was the stated goal of many conservatives. This has culminated in state ballot initiatives to uphold the right to choose. Voters in Ohio, Kansas, and Kentucky supported ballot initiatives that would preserve abortion access.

Republicans have responded in two ways. First, GOP legislators have attempted to ignore or flat-out overrule the will of the voters. The second is trying to downplay their own role in narrowing abortion access.

This is immoral in the most cynical way. We are now seeing people who allegedly have the moral conviction to ban abortion on the grounds that life begins at conception backtrack from their perfectly logical moral clarity. Why? Because they want to win elections.

Once again, the hypocrisy of the Republican Party makes it perfectly clear that they will give up any moral stand to hold onto power.

John Moretti

Claysville