After Kansas voters overwhelmingly rebuked an attempt to amend the state constitution to allow lawmakers to ban abortion, Republicans seem to be a bit shaken up.
HuffPost asked a number of Republican U.S. senators for their reactions to the vote. Kentucky’s Thom Tillis responded, “Kansas, which is a pretty red state―it’s hard to find the words. I think people should look at it.” South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham said, “It’s definitely a wake-up call for us,” but it’s not clear exactly what he means by that. In an ideal world, Republicans would get a “wake-up call” to the realization that abortion is an essential right that the majority of Americans across the political spectrum aren’t willing to give up, and those lawmakers would accept that and stop trying to trample over it. Something tells me that’s not what he means. More likely, he just means they need to rethink their messaging around said trampling.
Not every Republican is willing to pull their heads out of the sand and accept that abortion isn’t a “liberal” issue and that it affects every single person. Missouri Senator Roy Blunt told HuffPost that, come November, “I think the biggest motivator for voters this time is going to be the economy.”
Imagine living in the world we live in and still not understanding that access to abortion is an economic issue. Yes, people are concerned about the economy. So being able to make their own family planning decisions is an essential tool for working within those concerns.
The pill and legal abortion made women, for the first time in human history, able to evade lives of utter economic dependence on men.
— Nina Burleigh (@ninaburleigh) August 4, 2022
That also improved the economy, and here is how #christofascist backward-ism will reverse it.https://t.co/fG864qpJl0
It’s not just conservative lawmakers who were stunned by the Kansas vote. Watch Fox’s Laura Ingraham meet the news with an awkward pause as she learns the results live on the air:
Awkward Pause at the end pic.twitter.com/8jeTRctN6g
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 3, 2022
It seems like people who have been profiting off of reproductive oppression are kind of scared right now. Good, they should be.
(via HuffPost, featured image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
