THE SET-UP: A just-released Redfield and Wilton Strategies survey found that the issue of abortion now ranks second only to the economy in ten swing states and, more importantly to the Harris campaign, it’s generating passion:
Between 49% and 60% of women in every state polled say that abortion will be ‘extremely’ important in determining their vote in November, while a slightly smaller, but still significant, percentage of men in each state (44% to 51%) say the same.
…and…
Between 59% and 74% of likely Harris voters in the swing states say that abortion will be ‘extremely’ important in determining their vote. By comparison, between 33% and 45% of likely Trump voters in these states say the same.
It’s going to be a tough night for Trump if single-issue voters for abortion rights outnumber the Pro-life movement’s single-issue voters come November 5th. And Trump just spent a week demoralizing the latter and further motivating the former. But it’s not just Trump in that barrel. It could also be tough news for Republicans in the Senate.
As it stands now, the GOP is likely to tip the balance thanks to Sen. Jon Tester’s uphill battle in Montana and the loss of Joe Manchin’s West Virginia seat. Dems need to hold everything else (like Ohio) and find pick-ups. Enter Texas and Florida, where Rep. Colin Allred recently closed to within two points of Sen. Ted Cruz. And then there’s the “longshot” effort to eject a not-very popular Sen. Rick Scott in GOP-dominated Florida. Guess what? Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell just pulled within three points.
It would be quite a plot-twist if Senate seats in Texas and Florida flipped given the starring roles both have played as villains in the post-Dobbs drama. Then again, this election is all about the exciting plot-twist. Although the casting leaves something to be desired.
TITLE: Abortion Storylines on TV Impact Viewers “Across All Political Leanings,” Study Finds
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/abortion-on-tv-study-medically-accurate-storylines-educate-viewers-1235986389/
EXCERPT: In their paper “Abortion Depictions on Television: Impact on Audience Knowledge and Mobilization,” researchers surveyed 1,016 adult television viewers of three television episodes with depictions of the procedure that were deemed to be medically sound. The viewers of these storylines were tested for their knowledge of abortion and their interest in taking action after watching the 2022 A Million Little Things episode “Fresh Start,” the 2022 Better Things episode “No, I’m Not Gonna Tell Her” or the 2022 Station 19 episode “The Little Things You Do Together.”
Researchers gathered participants’ demographic information, including their political leanings. The survey took place in May 2022, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of that year, ending the constitutional right to abortion.
The A Million Little Things episode featured a radio announcer offering advice to a mother who is deciding whether to share with her family that she is having an abortion. The study’s authors found that viewers, primarily women, who watched the episode were found to have greater understanding of the expense of an abortion in the first trimester. These viewers, especially women and politically moderate people, also demonstrated a better knowledge of where to send a friend who is seeking an abortion. Male respondents exhibited a better understanding of medication abortion.
The Better Things episode (which initiated a storyline spanning multiple episodes), meanwhile, depicted a character’s daughter withholding her abortion from her mother. Researchers found that conservative and moderate participants with exposure to this plotline demonstrated better knowledge of the safety of abortion.
The Station 19 episode depicted a character having a medication abortion with the full support of her partner. Viewers of this episode showed a fuller understanding of the prevalence of first-trimester abortions (a trend that was especially strong for conservative and liberal viewers), while liberal viewers better understood the religious diversity of abortion patients.
Notably, the authors write, “Station 19 was the only one of the three storylines for which viewers took a greater number of actions in support of abortion access” — with viewers of all political leanings more likely to pen a social media post about reproductive rights after watching the episode and liberal viewers more likely to comment on a social media post, attend a rally or join a volunteer group related to abortion.
[P]ast research of onscreen depictions of abortion has largely found that the procedure “has often been depicted in over-dramatized and inaccurate ways in scripted entertainment,” the USC and ANSIRH study authors write. The accurate portrayals of the procedure seem to have made a difference. Overall, the results of this study “underscore the power of entertainment media to educate viewers, correct misinformation, and in some cases, mobilize audiences to action,” the authors state.
TITLE: A louder voice in fighting abortion bans: Men in red states
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/09/03/abortion-bans-pregnancy-miscarriage-men/
EXCERPT: “The silver lining of Dobbs is that it forced people to talk about what was stigmatized and shrouded in mystery — miscarriage, fetal anomalies, stillbirth,” Tresa Undem, a partner with the nonpartisan public opinion research group PerryUndem, said. They’re now realizing the range of scenarios that can be directly impacted by state bans “and the end of this illusion that you can separate elective abortion from emergency abortions.”
Men have an integral role here, in Donley’s view. “Abortion is now a crime and it’s impacting men and women — families — in ways that are unpredictable,” she said. “Men telling their own stories … is going to be a big way to change hearts and minds.”
Abortion opponents say that individual stories, however wrenching, do not signal a broader crisis. The president of Texas Right to Life, for one, blames a liberal conspiracy between media and doctors seeking to make a political statement about the bans. John Seago said his organization is working with other red states to clarify that miscarriage care is allowed when there is no longer a fetal heartbeat or when an ectopic pregnancy is diagnosed.
“There has been a lot of misunderstanding,” he said Friday, inviting men who are upset about what happened to their wives “to come join this movement in making the laws more clear to doctors and hospitals.”
Part of the public discussion is being propelled by men whose wives have been plaintiffs in lawsuits brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights. The litigation’s goal: more definitive medical exceptions to guide physicians fearful of running afoul of those laws.
In Idaho, John Adkins raced his wife from their home in Caldwell, a suburb of Boise, to Portland, Ore., last year after an ultrasound showed a fetal anomaly so complex that she was likely to suffer potentially deadly complications. Jennifer was nearing the end of her first trimester.
“I felt like a fugitive,” said Adkins, 37, a sixth-generation Idahoan. He remembers local doctors telling the couple that ending her pregnancy at that point would be illegal. (This June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Idaho hospitals should be allowed to perform emergency abortion care to stabilize patients despite the state ban.)
“What we went through, it violates all common sense,” Adkins said. He vowed that day he would “never again sit on the sidelines when it came to abortion rights.” He has since attended rallies and related community events. “I had not really known that miscarriages would be impacted like this. It was really the first time as a man that I realized what this all meant.”
Travis and Taylor Edwards took a similarly desperate drive from Austin to Colorado when she was 17 weeks along last year, grieving the imminent loss of her pregnancy. Tests had shown the fetus had a fatal condition.
Texas hospitals would not perform the needed abortion, according to the couple, and she endured a dangerous two-week delay in care.
“It was absurd what we went through and what others are going through,” said Edwards, 33. He was raised in a Catholic family that considered abortion evil but turned away from those beliefs as a teenager. “Everyone thought ‘abortion is this dirty word.’ But it was then that I realized it was end-of-life care — and lifesaving care for my wife.”
He describes himself as “so naive” before all this happened and says he now is very motivated to “get involved in this fight.” He was set to talk about his experience — including the subsequent birth of a son — at a campaign event for Rep. Colin Allred (D-Tex.), who is running against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) in November.
TITLE: Kamala Harris allies kick off ‘reproductive freedom’ bus tour in Palm Beach
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article291862210.html
EXCERPT: The presidential race in Florida has been a sleepier affair this year than in past election cycles as Republicans have strengthened their foothold in the state and the campaigns have shifted their focus to battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. But the Harris campaign’s bus tour launch in South Florida was still a significant maneuver for the vice president, happening on Trump’s home turf, not far from his residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. The tour is slated to head to Jacksonville on Wednesday and will make “at least 50 stops in key states through the fall,” according to Harris’ campaign.
Democrats argue that a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would safeguard abortion access up to the point of fetal viability or when determined necessary to protect the patient’s health could provide a boost to their candidates in November.
Trump, a Florida resident who for months has refused to give a direct answer on whether he supports that ballot measure, Amendment 4, said in an interview on Friday with Fox News that he will vote against it in November, calling the proposed protections for abortion rights “radical.”
That comment came just a day after Trump said that his vote in November would reflect that Florida “needs more than six weeks” of pregnancy to allow women to have abortions.
Recent polling has shown broad support for Amendment 4, with one survey from USA Today and Suffolk University released last month finding that 58% of Florida voters would back the proposal, which would effectively overturn a six-week abortion ban in Florida that went into effect earlier this year.
The proposed amendment will need at least 60% of the vote in November to pass.
Trump’s newly declared opposition to the proposed amendment provided new fodder for Harris’ allies on Tuesday.
Anya Cook, a Florida resident who spoke last month at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, told Harris’ supporters in Palm Beach how, in 2022, she was denied care at an emergency room after she experienced life-threatening pregnancy complications. She placed the blame for her experience on Florida’s abortion restrictions and Trump, who has taken credit for the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“He is ‘proudly the person responsible’ for what I and so many women across the country have gone through,” Cook, who is from Coral Springs, said, quoting Trump’s past comments on appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.