What's the matter with Kansas?

The pro-life movement found out Dobbs wasn't the end, but a new beginning.

Among the many elections decided last night was an interesting referendum in Kansas that showed the pro-life movement how much work they have to do in the wake of the Dobbs decision that revoked the federal baby murdering protections installed by Roe v. Wade nearly a half-century ago.

By an eighteen-point margin (59% to 41%) the state of Kansas decided not to revisit its constitutional protections for abortion. At first blush, this was thought to be a repudiation of the Supreme Court decision and in some ways that served as a motivating factor for the opponents. But it also serves as a milestone for the cause of right and we can draw several lessons from the plebiscite: first and foremost, the forces who believe in abortion on demand are going to empty their pocketbooks every time they see a threat. Because those who believe in one cause on the Left feel as if they’re allied with any other cause, this is going to be an all-hands-on-deck effort every time such a ban comes up for a vote. (I believe the next time will be in the state of Kentucky, which is a much more Bible-belt state than Kansas - but not a slam dunk, either.)

And that brings up another point. While Kansas is assumed to be a “red” Republican state, they’re actually more purple than you may think. Sure, in statewide federal elections the Sunflower State GOP has a streak dating back to LBJ beating Goldwater, but their governor’s chair has had its share of Democrats occupying it in the last half-century, mainly contending with a Republican legislature with its own tension between conservatives and moderates.

So perhaps the electorate isn’t as pro-life as an analyst would assume at first glance. But if you go around the country, abortion has been a 50-50 split issue for decades - roughly half the people define themselves as pro-life while the other half call themselves pro-choice. The difference now is that the pro-choice side is more motivated to speak out while the pro-life side rested on its laurels, having worked so hard in the judicial system to elect those who would select the judges most sympathetic to their cause and then produce a case that could make it to the Supreme Court.

But where the pro-abortion side has succeeded of late is in making the argument that the Supreme Court “took away” a right that was actually never theirs in the first place. (Of course they forget that the baby has the right to life that trumps the so-called “right to privacy” the mother never had.) Moreover, they have made the extremes into the rule by focusing on the 5% of abortions that may occur because of rape, incest, or danger to the life of the mother and glossing over the 95% that are simply post-conception birth control.

If you want to determine the middle ground on abortion, it’s shifted over the years from a point where even Democrats wanted it to be “safe, legal, and rare” to our current situation where some extremists are all for abortion right up to the moment of birth and even beyond. Such a position is deemed to be more mainstream than the other side saying abortions should be illegal regardless of the circumstance. However, if I were to survey 100 people my guess is that the majority would fall into a position somewhere between that of abortion should only be allowed in cases of rape, incest, or where the life of the mother is threatened and the former “first trimester” standard. (That’s actually roughly even a little less lenient where the law which Dobbs is based on falls, yet the Left had a cow about that.)

Had this Kansas election come up without the influence of Dobbs, though, I think the vote would have still worked out about the same because those who were motivated by the Supreme Court probably added about 10 points’ worth to the pro-choice side but the additional interest likely enticed about 6 points’ worth of pro-lifers to come out. It still helps the cause that the abortion playing field moved to the state level because it makes the big-money abortion racketeers spend their money in 50 different venues rather than run the show from inside the Beltway.

I’m certainly hoping the side of right learns from this example. The forces who want to cheapen life aren’t stopping just because of a court ruling, and we still have a lot of hearts and minds to change. Kansas voters proved it.