Brunswick Beacon, 11.16.23
The 2023 “off-year” elections found Americans roaring back against massive MAGA Republican overreach into women’s reproductive health. Ohio citizens voted overwhelmingly to enshrine the "right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions" in their state constitution despite aggressive MAGA Republican fearmongering and deception about the ballot measure.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin tried offering a 15-week “repression lite” abortion ban. Brian Kilmeade of Fox News summed it up best: "He wanted a 15-week abortion ban and he also said flip the House, keep the Senate, and he lost both. What an epic failure by Governor Youngkin.”
Democratic Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear defeated Trump-endorsed Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron. A heartbreaking Beshear campaign ad featuring a girl who was raped by her stepfather reminded voters that Cameron opposes any exceptions whatsoever in his draconian abortion vision. In Pennsylvania, Democrat Dan McCaffery won election to the state supreme court. McCaffery is an ardent defender of abortion rights and other rights imperiled by MAGA Republican overreach.
Although 64 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal, MAGA Republicans are doubling down on banning abortions and criminalizing women and their doctors. They’re not stopping there; contraception bans are next on their agenda. MAGA Republicans who have been shrieking about “small government” now yearn to camp out in every American bedroom and doctor’s office so that they can enforce their reproductive laws. Talk about government overreach!
Voters, thankfully, can see through this treachery. They’re energized and ready to fight. So go ahead, MAGA Republicans. Keep terrorizing women and girls and their families. Keep toughening your already barbaric policies. Keep running increasingly extreme candidates. Keep bragging about how you’ll overturn the will of the voters.
Every time MAGA Republicans double down, Democrats win elections and continue to fight for the rights of all Americans, including the right to privacy and everything that it entails.
Linda McConnell Baker
Leland