Abortion bans affect all pregnancies. That's bad news for the GOP

For nearly 50 years, the only thought most elected Republicans ever had about abortion was showing the anti-abortion lobby just how far they’d go to restrict it. It was easy for them: Sign onto whatever new restrictions were proposed, no matter how egregious, demeaning, or invasive. If you supported it, you got a little gold star and the coveted endorsement of the biggest forced-birth organizations to display on your campaign site. The best part? No one could challenge these bills. They were all written prospectively, to be triggered at some vague time in the future after Roe v. Wade was overturned. 

You’d have expected some of these legislators to take a beat and reflect, at least a tiny bit, on the potential consequences of their votes. But seemingly, none did. And for years, these prospective laws gathered dust on the books in red states. 

Then the stars aligned. During his presidency, Donald Trump sat three conservative Supreme Court justices, and those justices overturned Roe. In the blink of an eye, a long-held constitutional right was blithely erased by Justice Samuel Alito and his cadre of backslapping Federalist Society colleagues on the court. And all those “trigger” laws—laws that few expected would one day be enforced—suddenly became the law of the land. Republicans everywhere rejoiced and congratulated themselves. They’d accomplished something! 

But now, two years later, Republicans are belatedly waking up to the monster they’ve created. Not because of the harm they’ve meted out to millions of their own citizens—that never truly bothered them—but because that monster is now devouring them politically.

Reality is kicking in—just in time for the 2024 election.