Third Way Dispatch

Governor Rounds just today signed into law South Dakota’s near-total ban on abortion. With this devastating moment for personal liberties comes a long-awaited break for progressives. For too long now, progressives have been losing the battle of reasonableness with moderate voters, whom we call the “abortion grays” (see our issue brief Who is Winning the Abortion Grays?). Here’s our chance to turn things back around.

It wasn’t always so. In the 1980s, it was the conservatives who were considered the extremists, zealots marching with a fetus in a jar and bombing abortion clinics. Over a decade ago, however, conservatives changed tactics and became the abortion regulators, tinkering around the edges of the issue and giving them the advantage with the abortion grays. But now, with the SD ban, conservatives have returned to their old ways and exposed their true colors.

Progressives should seize this opportunity to expose conservatives’ end goal of putting doctors and women in jail and criminalizing abortion. At the same time, progressives can reestablish their connection with moderate voters by acknowledging the moral complexity of abortion. Who doesn’t think that 1.3 million annual abortions — or one in five pregnancies ending in abortion — is too many? Progressives should take up the mantle of reducing the number of abortions in America while protecting personal liberties. For more on our suggested message for progressives on the SD abortion ban, please read our message memo on the subject A Defining Moment From South Dakota.