CLIVE, Iowa — Republicans are caught in a trap on abortion, and it’s only getting worse.
They know extreme abortion policies are unpopular and will cost them at the ballot box, yet any step they might take to the center on the issue risks angering evangelical voters, a key GOP constituency that is bent on banning the procedure nationwide.
The intraparty conflict in post-Roe America was on full display here in the Hawkeye State, where a crop of declared presidential candidates and some who are still exploring a run gathered on Saturday for the first major event of the 2024 presidential caucus cycle.
The forum, hosted by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, a leading organization of social conservatives, drew over a thousand like-minded attendees who came to the event in support of evangelical causes and to kick the tires on the expanding GOP presidential field.
“We need to protect life,” Sara DeMeulenaere, a retired ministry worker, said as she wandered the cavernous arena where the event was held. “There’s no giving up and saying death is an option. It’s not an option for our elderly or our babies.”
The push to ban abortion nationwide was dealt a temporary blow after the Supreme Court issued a ruling Friday allowing a major abortion drug to remain on the market. But advocates on both sides of the issue expect the justices to address the matter again as conservatives try to do in court what they haven’t been able to accomplish in Congress.
There’s ample evidence of a backlash to GOP abortion policies on the state level. In the past six months, Democrats outperformed in both the House and Senate during the 2022 midterm elections, won a referendum that kept abortion legal in bleeding-red Kansas and shifted the balance of the Wisconsin Supreme Court toward liberals for the first time in decades.
Those losses can help explain why most Republicans try to steer clear of abortion politics on the national stage, keeping quiet even after the Supreme Court reversed a 50-year precedent that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion, something they’ve been working to make a reality for decades.
In Congress, Republicans are divided over how best to approach the issue. Some lawmakers maintain the question should be left up to the individual states. But a faction of more conservative-minded Republicans have endorsed a national ban and have urged the Supreme Court to enact severe restrictions on abortion drugs, which have been proved safe by dozens of scientific studies.
In a sign of the growing influence of the latter group, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), a member of GOP Senate leadership who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is responsible for electing more Republicans to the upper chamber, vowed on Saturday to keep trying to ban the abortion pill.
But Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who is expected to jump into the 2024 race for president, declined to weigh in when asked about the ruling during a farm visit in the nearby town of Cumming, Iowa. “I have confidence in the judiciary to let it play out,” said Scott, who had some trouble detailing where he stood on the question of banning abortion earlier this month.
Scott suggested that his party should tread carefully if it wants to win elections in the future.
“People want a fighter, that’s good. But they also want to win, that’s better. And so the real question is how do we do that? And the best way to do that is to make sure our message is in sync with what the voters want, and what the nation needs,” he said.
Former President Donald Trump, who leads in polls of the 2024 GOP race by a wide margin, has also approached the issue with some caution.
Trump did not attend the Faith and Freedom event on Saturday and addressed the room with a recorded message instead, highlighting actions he took as president to try to restrict abortion rights. Top among them were his appointments of hundreds of conservative judges, including the three Supreme Court justices that helped overturn Roe v. Wade.
“Nobody thought it was going to happen,” Trump said in the video, drawing applause from the crowd. “They thought it would be another 50 years. Because Republicans had been trying to do it for exactly that period of time, 50 years.”
But Trump has not backed a national abortion ban, a stance that drew a sharp rebuke last week from a top anti-abortion group, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which called it a “morally indefensible position for a self-proclaimed pro-life presidential candidate.” The group said it would oppose any Republican candidate who declines to support a national abortion ban beginning by 15 weeks into pregnancy.
Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s top rival who hasn’t formally announced a campaign yet, also didn’t attend the event. He recently signed into law a deeply unpopular abortion ban starting at six weeks of pregnancy in Florida, doing so without fanfare or a signing ceremony. He has also avoided mentioning it on his travels across the country.
One likely 2024 contender who hasn’t been afraid to advocate for a nationwide abortion ban is Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president who is popular in the evangelical community. Pence appeared at the Saturday confab, mingling with fans and taking selfies. He lamented the Supreme Court order allowing the abortion pill on the market and appeared to take a dig at his former boss for not showing up in person.
“The enthusiasm in this room is palpable. The people of Iowa appreciate it when they see ya,” Pence told reporters after his remarks to the crowd.
But former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is set to announce his 2024 GOP bid this week, argued that his party needs to approach the issue of abortion with “thoughtfulness” and “compassion” even as it pushes for restrictions on the procedure.
“We have to handle it in the right way,” Hutchinson, who also spoke at the event, told HuffPost. “It starts with, ‘These are our convictions, this is what we believe is good,’ but also with a lot of compassion. ... It’s important that we recognize the vast number of Americans that support exceptions of life of the mother, rape and incest. I think we err when we reduce those exceptions because the public generally supports those.”
Among the Faith and Freedom attendees in Iowa on Saturday, the vast majority said they’d like to see abortion stamped out nationwide, but they doubted whether it would ever happen. A few also expressed reservations about abortion restrictions with zero exceptions.
“I have kind of mixed feelings on some of that, between rape and incest,” said Deborah Nelson, a convenience store owner from western Iowa. “My husband always said I was the most liberal Republican he knew on some of those issues.”
Mark Oltrogge, a retiree from Kelver, Iowa, meanwhile, said Republicans need to continue the fight even if, at the moment, abortion has been left up to the states to decide.
“I don’t see returning an issue to the states necessarily as a win for pro-life,” Oltrogge said. “I would like to see no abortions. I’m hoping that someday, I would like to see all life [protected]. I would like to see that come to fruition.”