2024 is the first time in decades that the Republican Party platform does not call for a national ban on abortion But Shefali Luthra says it also points toward establishing fetal personhood through the 14th Amendment.
It’s just one example of how the GOP and abortion opponents are reshaping their message around abortion in a post-Roe world in which it has become clear that most Americans support some abortion rights — and many Republican candidates have backed away from the issue.
The Show spoke more about their new strategies in this political landscape with the 19th’s Shefali Luthra. Luthra covers reproductive rights for the outlet and is the author of the new book "Undue Burden: Life & Death in Post-Roe America."
Full conversation
SHEFALI LUTHRA: Abortion opponents are in a pretty tough spot. They just came off a Supreme Court year in which they didn't succeed. They were trying to get mifepristone, an abortion pill, restricted and they lost. And that's really been a setback for them because what they're advocating for is not popular.
They are finding that lawmakers are a bit more nervous now about passing new restrictions on abortion, especially in states where there are already bans in place, because they don't want to risk the political blowback. And they also have seen what we've all seen for the past two years, which is that whenever voters have a chance to vote on abortion rights, abortion has won. And so they're trying to find a new way around that. They are focusing a lot on, what they say is, "late term abortion," which is a medically meaningless term, but it serves to demonize abortion and make people think it's something much more extreme.
And what they are really focusing on is trying to muddy the waters a bit when it comes to how we talk about abortion, especially when it's on the ballot. And there was reporting out of Arizona that showed that they were trying to get ballot language on a proposed ballot measure there to call fetuses unborn human beings. They've put out ads in Florida, where abortion is also on the ballot, saying that this measure would be very extreme, that no one knows what viability is — which is the point to which you would guarantee the right to an abortion even though viability is pretty well established — and they're trying to suggest that it would create an abortion wild west.
And that's really what they see as their best hope of winning because the public doesn't approve of very extreme abortion bans. They largely don't think abortion should be available in all cases, but they are more supportive of it than not. And so if you oppose abortion, your best and only hope really is to cast Democrats and abortion rights supporters — who often go hand in hand - as quite radical.
LAUREN GILGER: So there's a lot to unpack there. Let's return to Arizona for a moment, and there are kind of parallel conversations happening in other parts of the country like Florida that you mentioned, we're talking about lawmakers here using the phrase unborn human being instead of fetus, and the citizens initiative that would enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution that's now headed to court.
Talk a little bit about the language here and how whether or not you're talking about what counts as extreme, or the other phrase that you use here, late term abortion, there seems to be a lot that comes into semantics right now in terms of how the politics are playing around this.
LUTHRA: Exactly and in the Arizona case, they want it to be called an unborn human being for any pregnancy past 15 weeks. And that's a line that abortion opponents have been trying to shift the debate toward. They have been trying to call that the era of when late term abortions begin even though, just a few years ago, they were saying 20 weeks, and a few years before that they were saying 22. And I have spoken to a lot of pollsters about this — including strategists who work in largely Republican and anti abortion settings — and they've been quite clear about this: there is no scientific justification for saying that 15 weeks onward is when this becomes a "late term abortion" or an unborn human being in a way that it wasn't before 15 weeks.
What it actually is, is a reflection of the polling. And that is the earliest number that they can find where they have more Republican support than not. And I even had someone say to me once, it's 15, because it's a nice number. It's round, people love fives and zeros.
GILGER: So I mean, it's shifted a lot, as you mentioned, over the decades, in terms of what abortion opponents are actually pushing for. A six-week ban, a total ban, an eight-week ban, a 15-week ban. And the Republican Party recently adopted a platform that was different again, right?
LUTHRA: Exactly and this has gotten quite a lot of attention in the press, but it's pretty complicated. And the headline for a lot of folks was that this was the first time in decades that the Republican Party platform does not call for a national 20-week abortion ban. And there was a quick movement to say oh, well, that's a tremendous loss for the anti-abortion movement. But I think it's important that we look a bit deeper at what the platform says. It's pretty bare bones, but it does underscore the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, and it suggests that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution — the Equal Protection Amendment passed during Reconstruction after the Civil War — protects fetuses. It protects embryos. And that is a tenet of the anti-abortion movements fetal personhood goal.
The platform that the RNC adopted says that the 14th Amendment can be used to justify state abortion bans. They're trying to have it both ways, nod at the 14th Amendment, but also say this is a state's issue.
But in reality, by nodding at this particular federal provision, it does begin to lay a legal framework, ideology, political argument, that there should be a national abortion ban and that it is seated in the Constitution. And that is the argument that anti-abortion activists are really, really trying to make and they are quite thrilled that this is something that has been included in the RNC platform.
GILGER: What's next on the mifepristone front? Like abortion opponents are working to stop people — in other ways — from getting abortion pills in the mail still, is that right?
LUTHRA: They absolutely are. It is an existential concern for them because what they have seen is people who are in states with abortion bans can still access abortion by getting mifepristone and misoprostol mailed to them. They lost at the Supreme Court. They are trying to bring that case back because that case was dismissed on a technicality — the question of whether the plaintiffs had legal standing to sue.
Idaho, Kansas and Missouri, the attorneys general there have said that they would like to join the suit, and it seems that the courts are open to that. So in all likelihood, we will see this case return to the Supreme Court in the coming years. What I've also heard from abortion opponents is they are really leaning on the election and on the presidential election.
They are hoping that by having an administration in the White House that is friendlier to their cause — that is at the very least staffed by abortion opponents — they could see the DOJ and the FDA and other such federal agencies be used to crack down on the mailing of abortion pills to find ways to restrict access to mifepristone. And that for them would be a tremendous victory with consequences not only in states where abortion is banned, but across the country.
GILGER: But on that front, like even if former President Trump wins the White House, this has shifted tremendously. His position on abortion has shifted tremendously. Is there a lot of hope from abortion opponents that an administration like that would carry out their wishes?
LUTHRA: The abortion opponents feel pretty confident that they will be able to continue exerting pressure on a Trump administration, in part because of the people who have advised him in the past, and because of his record on this issue when he was in the White House, and the people they anticipate filling administrative positions.
President Trump's administration didn't just nominate Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. It also did exert policies that were anti-abortion, they changed the federal Title X programs so that it wouldn't fund Planned Parenthood. There's a real world in which they can have the allies they need in the White House and in surrounding agencies, even if the president himself doesn't want to vocally commit to any of these things.
GILGER: All right, lots to watch for there. Shefali Luthra, reproductive health reporter for the 19th and author of the new book "Undue Burden: Life and Death in Post-Roe America," joining us to talk more about the political landscape here. Shefali, thank you for coming back on. I appreciate it.
LUTHRA: Thank you so much for having me.
