Iowa House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst said the message for Democratic candidates is clear in 2024. There are two issues: reproductive freedom and public education. Both are equally important. Where the rubber meets the road, during local political canvassing, many voters equate a discussion about “reproductive freedom” with one about “abortion.” In fact, Konfrst used both terms in her speech to delegates at the June 15 state convention. My question is will “reproductive freedom” do the work?
In my latest iteration as a political canvasser, beginning during the 2004 election cycle, I’ve been meeting with voters where they are. No one keeps track of how many voters they contact, yet certain themes stand out. One of them is abortion.
There is a hard line for people who oppose abortion. It’s the first question they ask of a canvasser, and the first one to shut down any dialogue if the answer is wrong. “Your candidate wants abortion to be legal? This conversation is over.” The main purpose of the canvass was accomplished: This voter is in the no column. It’s time to move on.
Polling done by the Des Moines Register is clear: “61 percent of Iowans say abortion should be legal in most or all cases and 33 percent said it should be illegal in most or all cases.” Establishing the ability for women and their physician to choose to have an abortion as part of women’s health care has broad support. The key question is will that matter in a hyper-partisan election? The Magic 8 ball returned “Reply hazy, try again.”
At one of my workplaces, my supervisor was an anti-abortion activist. That made for interesting conversations while traversing the countryside together in a rental car, listening to Rush Limbaugh, and making sales calls. I can’t count how many times I heard statistics on abortions from him. Some facts: before Dobbs, in 2021, there were 3,761 recorded abortions in Iowa. 625,978 were reported to the Centers for Disease Control that year. Literally millions of children were being killed by abortionists, my supervisor said. This was the same person who enabled me to meet John McCain, allowed me to register people to vote in the workplace, and let me lobby for the company with Dave Loebsack while we were in D.C. It was a weird work experience.
My point in telling this story is I learned the anti-abortion crowd is well financed, highly organized, and well connected. Groups like Heritage Action, part of the dark money Koch network, plan to keep awareness of how to restrict abortion rights front and center. They are in it for the long haul and are willing to spend resources and time accomplishing their objectives.
It is important to remember anti-abortion activists worked continuously for five decades to overturn Roe vs. Wade. They will not walk away from an electorate because polling shows voters favor the ability to have an abortion. We recently saw debates about abortion pills, in vitro fertilization, military policy toward abortion, and more. Women’s health care will be a constant presence in the election, creating a haze of what-aboutism, misinformation, disinformation, and outright deception. The intent is to obfuscate and by doing so, prevent Democrats from getting elected. Konfrst is right: we need to address this head on through our campaign messaging.
Will voters who support restricting abortion rights crossover and vote for Joe Biden and down ballot Democrats? I wouldn’t think so. We must know who they are and formally identify them in our database. Talking to them may be a lost cause, yet it is part of the canvassing work.
Democrats can bridge the gap where people live. There may be people, regardless of party registration for whom right to choose is valued. According to the Register poll, there are a lot of them. Once we find those people we must give them support, and if needed, some cover in return for a vote. That’s a lot different from asking whether they will vote for a specific candidate. It requires a longer term commitment to community that goes beyond elections. It would be good for Democrats to learn how to do that, and fast.
When it comes to messaging for the November election, we should follow the lead of our political leaders. To the extent Democrats do that, and frame the discussion as one of “reproductive freedom,” winning is possible. In the end, though, we will be talking about abortion because that is the vernacular voters use. There is no escaping it. We should embrace it.
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