Riffing off of Ann Friedman, Matthew Yglesias makes the point that anti-abortion legislation is inevitable when the nominally pro-choice party gives up on pushing its view in the public sphere:
When Democrats decided about ten years ago to stop pushing for gun control legislation, that didn't take the issue off the table it led to a wave of envelop-pushing pro-gun bills. When the GOP temporarily stopped opposing Social Security in the wake of World War II, it led to 30 years of steady increases in Social Security beenfits and eligibility. Every conservative retreat from anti-gay bigotry inspires people to push deeper for equality. As long as a large minority of the public thinks people should be thrown in jail for having an abortion, we'll either see continual fighting on this point or else continued slippage as the debate loses an anchor on the pro-choice side.
This is exactly right. I'd only add that this process has been accelerated by the absence of any meaningful pro-choice constituency within the Republican Party. As far as I can tell, there is no internal opposition to harsh, anti-abortion legislation within the GOP. Few Republican legislators will own up to pro-choice views, and there is nothing like a Club for Growth or Focus on the Family within the GOP to pressure lawmakers to oppose draconian measures against abortion. On the contrary, there is a virtually unanimous GOP consensus against abortion.
For pro-choice advocates, Democrats are the only game in town, and it's bad news bears. That is, Democrats can freely ignore abortion rights when it suits them, as they don't have to worry about electoral defection. What's more, they can treat reproductive health as a second-order concern, subordinate to election-year concerns, like electability and issue popularity. They might push back against objectionable legislation, but it's not a priority. And as Yglesias notes, this mismatched enthusiasm favors the more extreme activists, who are mostly on the right. It seems obvious, but pro-choice advocates need pro-choice Republicans if they want any chance at rolling back anti-abortion gains.
