Republicans are flipping the abortion script on Democrats as the midterms’ home stretch runs out

It looked for a while like the end of Roe would be a galvanising issue in November, but things aren’t playing out quite as the Democrats hoped

Joe Biden gives a speech promising to enshrine abortion rights in law should Democrats control Congress (AP)

For a while, Republicans looked like they might be on the ropes headed into this year’s midterms – but it appears they have found a new way to flip the script: simply ask the Democrats whether they support any limits on abortion.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in June, Democrats have been highlighting what they say is the Republican Party’s anti-abortion extremism, focusing in particular on attempts to limit legal access to abortion to the extremely early stages of pregnancy, if at all.

The opinion data in this area is murky. In April, prior to the court’s bombshell ruling, a Wall Street Journal poll found 48 per cent of American voters would support a ban at 15 weeks while 55 per cent of American voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Of course, that was before the court ruled on Dobbs v Jackson, the case that ended in Roe’s demise. A late June Harvard-Harris poll in the days after Dobbs found that 23 per cent of voters supported a 15-week ban and 18 per cent supported a 24-week ban. But since then, political circumstances have changed wildly.

Republicans first tried putting the onus on Democrats with ploys like Lindsey Graham’s proposed legislation banning abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy. That particular move appeared to backfire, mostly highlighting that the Republican Party is dedicated to limiting abortion one way or another. But as a result, throughout debate season and as the general election approaches, plenty of debate moderators and reporters have asked Democratic candidates whether they support any restrictions on abortion at all.

Last week, during the first Georgia Senate debate, a moderator asked Senator Raphael Warnock whether he believed there should be any government-imposed limit on abortion. To this he replied: “I think that a patient’s room is too small and narrow a space for a woman, her doctor and the United States government.”

On Sunday, CNN’s Dana Bash asked Arizona gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs whether she supported any limits. She repeatedly dodged, saying rather that late-term abortion is “incredibly, extremely rare,” noting that most people who seek one do so because something has gone wrong with their pregnancy.

Similarly, during Florida’s Senate debate on Tuesday, Republican Senator Marco Rubio dinged his Democratic opponent Representative Val Demings for not supporting any restrictions.

“She supports no restrictions, no limitations of any kind,” he insisted, noting how she voted against four-month and five-month bans. “She supports taxpayer funded abortion on demand for any reason at any time, up until the moment of birth. That’s what she supports.”

In response, Ms Demings responded that she does indeed support some restrictions.

“I’ve said time and time again and he knows that I support a woman’s right to choose up to the time of viability,” she said.

Whether that line is enough for her and her fellow candidates will be determined on 8 November.