Washington, Dec 16
The US Supreme Court's intervention in cases relating to the people's access to abortion pills could turn the tide of voter turnout in the 2024 presidential elections as the Democrats have made abortion rights of women their number one agenda for the campaign to re-elect Joe Biden to the White House, US media reports suggest.
The Democrats had already won the off-year elections in Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia in a major blow to the hardliner Republicans who wanted abortion rights of women to go away after the Supreme Court overturned the Roe vs Wade SC ruling that held for several decades since the 70s upholding a woman's right to her reproductive rights.
The Republicans did badly in the November midterm elections to the House of Representatives last year when Donald Trump's "Red Tsunami" did not happen as voters rejected the erosion of abortion rights turning a greater mandate for the Democrats returning a marginal win for the Republicans in the House at 222 to 213, just nine-seat majority. One is retiring and one is being expelled which means Republican strength comes down further.
Now comes ACT II of the 2024 presidential race, media reports said adding, that the apex court teed up a series of political hot potatoes, including a bid to maintain access to a widely used abortion pill, Mifepristone.
Trump's appeal for executive immunity as former President against election subversion cases including conspiracy and racketeering and intimidation of witnesses and court clerks has to pass the acid test at the Supreme Court with the DOJ strongly opposing it.
Combined with its earlier decision to also reconsider a federal law that makes it a crime for people under domestic violence restraining orders to have guns, the cases that the justices agreed to hear are set to have major ramifications for voter turnout in the 2024 presidential election – and could potentially even dictate who returns to the White House, the US News and World Report said in an analysis of events that could turn the tide in favour of the democrats in 2024 presidential race as it did in the off year elections.
Ohio voted to enshrine abortion rights as a fundamental right in its constitution frustrating the Republican candidates who fought against it, media reports said.
"I think the abortion case probably has the biggest potential to impact turnout," says Alex Badas, political science professor at the University of Houston.
"After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs case, what we saw was a really strong increase in registration among younger voters – among women, in particular – and it seems to be those who tend to be Democratic."
The Supreme Court announced this week that it will hear a case brought by a group of doctors and medical associations opposed to abortion – the outcome of which could restrict how the drug mifepristone can be obtained, who can prescribe it and when it can be taken, reports said pointing out that if the appeal is upheld by the apex court the republicans are walking into a firestorm with the voters.
"If the Supreme Court makes another decision, maybe limiting access to the abortion pill, we could potentially see another mobilization effort where we see going into the presidential election these voters are freshly mobilized," he says.
A year after the Supreme Court reversed the guaranteed right to an abortion – a ruling that led young women to register to vote in droves – the decision is still sending shock waves through the Republican Party, crippling its ability to nab supermajorities and cement a conservative agenda, reports said.
What unfolded in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization was perhaps the penultimate example of the political ramifications of a judicial institution.
Indeed, the 2023 off-year election showed the staying power of the Dobbs decision, even in red states like Ohio, where voters added the right to abortion into the state constitution, and Kentucky, where Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear kept his seat in an election often defined by his support for abortion rights.
And in Virginia, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin failed to produce the GOP takeover of the state legislature he and other Republican strategists had been forecasting weeks ahead of the election – he just could not pass the 15-week limit on abortions that he campaigned on.
Abortion rights are poised to continue to be a powerful motivator for young people in 2024, according to a new poll from Harvard University's Institute of Politics, suggesting the issue is politically explosive among 18- to 29-year-olds a year, and a half after the Supreme Court reversed the guaranteed right to an abortion.
Those surveyed were twice as likely to describe themselves as "pro-choice" than as "pro-life". And even as the poll showed a percentage drop of youngsters who plan to vote in the 2024 elections, well over half of registered young voters say they will "definitely" vote next year if an abortion-related referendum is on their state ballot.
This abortion vs life choice issue has dramatically changed the minds of young voters, the poll found that 69 per cent of young women and 55 per cent of young men say that access to reproductive health care is important when choosing which state to call home. A majority of young women – 53 per cent – said it was "very important".
Already groups in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and South Dakota are in the process of or considering getting abortion rights measures on the ballot for next year's elections.
When it comes to Trump, the leading Republican candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, the two cases – one that the court has already agreed to hear and the other the court has agreed to consider – stand to have profound implications for the country going forward into an election year, reports said.
