If anything was less impressive on election night than the “red wave,” it was the abortion wave. Blue states protected abortion rights as expected, but public officials who have supported or enforced limits on abortion in nearly 20 red states were re-elected.
Americans have learned since June that the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t make abortion illegal in the Dobbs decision. Instead, after decades of jurisprudence that effectively taught Americans to embrace abortion, the Court made abortion an issue for voters, for Congress, and for states.
Since June, the states have been actively forming their own policy. California, New York, and Illinois have maintained their policy of abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy, while a dozen other states have moved in various ways to abolish abortion or embrace pain-capable or similar protections.
