July 31, 2024 11:53 AM UTC

Abortion Rights: What "Leave it Up to the States" Really Means

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• by: Colorado Pols

The issue of abortion rights has been a real problem for Republicans since the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade that removed federal protections for the procedure. Since that decision, voters in every state that have had an opportunity to vote on the issue — including beet-red states such as Kansas — have overwhelmingly sided in favor of preserving abortion rights for women.

This fact has not been lost on Republican politicians who are trying to thread the needle with their anti-choice base while not appearing to be unelectable for everyone else. Polling has shown that one-third of American voters will only support a politician who shares their views on abortion rights, which is why Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump has gone out of his way to publicly proclaim that the issue “should be left to the states” and should not include a nationwide ban on the procedure.

A few months after the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, we noted in this space that there was no longer room for “nuance” on the subject of abortion rights. You either support the right of women to make their own reproductive health decisions, or you don’t. It’s a “Yes or No” question, though many Republicans are still trying to find a third answer. Those who used to dodge this question by saying something like, ‘Abortion rights are settled law in this country/state,’ are now defaulting to the line that abortion rights should be left up to the states.

But “leaving it to the states” leads to some pretty awful results.

As The Associated Press reports:

Iowa’s strict abortion law went into effect Monday, immediately prohibiting most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. [Pols emphasis]

Iowa’s Republican leaders have been seeking the law for years and gained momentum after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The Iowa Supreme Court also issued a ruling that year saying there was no constitutional right to abortion in the state.

“There is no right more sacred than life,” Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said in June. “I’m glad that the Iowa Supreme Court has upheld the will of the people of Iowa.”

Now, across the country, four states ban abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, and 14 states have near-total bans at all stages of pregnancy. [Pols emphasis]

Of course, this doesn’t mean that women in Iowa are foregoing abortion care altogether. For those with the means to do so, they are now traveling to other states (including Colorado) in order to get the care that they desperately need. Here’s how abortion rights now look across the country, via the Guttmacher Institute:

Here in Colorado, Republican Gabe-ish Evans is using a similar line in his campaign against incumbent Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo in CO-08. This is what Evans says about abortion rights on his campaign website:

When my wife was about 24 weeks pregnant with our second son, the doctor told us he was likely incompatible with life (praise God, he’s now seven and loves puppies). Since then, my wife has had eight miscarriages. We’ve seen the heartbeat at six weeks, and mourned the loss of a child at nine weeks.

I am pro-life, believe abortion stops a beating heart, and oppose taxpayer funded abortion. Since the US Supreme Court has returned this issue to the states, I will not vote for a national abortion ban. Coloradans must determine how to best protect women and babies’ lives. [Pols emphasis] I will support legislation like H.R. 7, which affirms that taxpayer dollars cannot be used to fund abortion.

That’s the official vetted version of Evans’s position on abortion rights, which is as confusing as lady parts are to Evans in general (more on that in a moment). Does this mean that Evans actually supports abortion rights in Colorado — which will likely be enshrined in the State Constitution after the November election? Of course not — and his votes as a State Representative confirm as much. When Evans says, “leave it to the states,” what’s he’s really saying is, ‘it’s okay to gut abortion rights wherever possible.’

In fact, when Evans starts to expand his talking points on abortion rights, it becomes immediately clear that “leave it to the states” is not a line he takes all that seriously. Here he is doing an interview with right-wing “reporter” Sherrie Peif a few weeks ago:

EVANS: Again, I’m not a woman. I know the difference between a man and a woman.

PEIF: You’re not a ‘birthing parent’?

EVANS: Yeah…no. So there’s a lot of just like, that, you know, like I know enough, but there’s a lot of nuances to that female reproductive care stuff that my wife is sitting there trying to explain to me about how this stuff all works together. And I…you know…there’s a lot of doctors that she goes to that I don’t go to. I don’t got the right parts. [Pols emphasis]

PEIF: Right.

EVANS: She’s trying to explain to me, like, what happens at these doctor’s visits, and at a certain point I’m like, ‘I’m just going to have to take your word for it.’ Because, to me that’s what’s most important — is that we figure out, how do we best protect life. And life…there’s a lot of complexity to it. Particularly when you get down to the realm of eight miscarriages and figuring out, ‘Okay, how do I protect life in this particular situation? How do I protect life in that particular situation?’

“I don’t got the right parts.” If only that meant that Evans would thus recuse himself from voting on issues related to reproductive care for women.

The ‘leave it up to the states’ answer also leaves the door open to a bunch of other questions. What would Evans do under a potential Trump administration that prohibits interstate movement for health care services? What would he say to a crackdown on telehealth and the distribution of abortion drugs such as mifepristone (which now account for 63% of all abortions nationwide)? How would Evans react to conservative state lawmakers and activists who are using shady tactics to keep abortion rights off the ballot in red states?

And despite what he says about opposing a national abortion ban, would Evans really vote no on such a proposal if Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson brought a vote to the floor with a promise from Trump to sign the legislation?

The bottom line here is simple: Saying that we should ‘leave abortion rights decisions up to the states’ is just a long-winded way of affirming that you oppose abortion rights in general. Again…you either support the right of women to make their own reproductive health decisions — regardless of which state they call home — or you don’t.

There is no third answer.