Why Abortion is a Big Winner for Democrats
I have already written about abortion as policy. Also, my friends from the Speaking In Church podcast recently invited me on to talk about abortion from an economic impact angle and, or course, the theology around abortion. Usually when people ask me what I personally think about an issue, I tell them that what I think isn’t important because what I think shouldn’t impact what you think. But Josie managed to get me to talk about my own beliefs, so there’s that if you’re interested.
Today I’m writing about abortion from a behavioral economics perspective.
Abortion seems like it has become a big winner for Democrats. In elections so far this season Democrats have far outperformed expectations. It’s hard to parse the data to know how much of this is due to abortion, and how much is due to things like falling gas prices, disinflation, and a handful of important bills passed in DC. On the other side there have also been a few butt fumbles by Republicans—like voting to kill the burn pit bill for veterans’ health care after they already supported it, just because they were mad Joe Manchin out McConnelled Mitch McConnell.
But, the Kansas referendum, which was a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ vote on abortion, designed in every way possible to favor the anti-abortion outcome, got beaten bigly. Clearly, abortion rights are a serious concern for a big chunk of persuadable voters.
But, Why?
So many states were already trying to ban abortions before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Before Roe was overturned conservative states had forced almost all abortion providers to shut down anyway. What is it about the Dobbs decision that has given such a political boost to Democrats?
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The answer is one you’ve heard from me before: because $10 isn’t worth $10. I didn’t start The Constituent to give advice, but the one piece of advice I will always give out for free is this: If Psychologists, Political Scientists, and Economists all agree on something, you should really take that thing seriously. Overturning Roe is a perfect example of this.
For whatever reason most people (I honestly don’t understand this, but I know it’s true because my beautiful wife is definitely most people) don’t value identical losses equal to identical gains. So, if I give you $10 that $10 actually means less to you than if I took $10 away. For whatever reason our brains tell us that losing $10 hurts us more than gaining $10 helps us. Even though the loss and the gain are identical, human brains tend to internalize the value of the loss more.
This is why I make the argument that any politician who wants to change something or institute a new policy framework has to be at least twice as good at making their case for the changes than their opponents are at making the case against the changes. It’s often called a status quo bias. We know that if nothing happens then everything stays how it already is—we don’t lose anything. But, if some politician comes along and restructures a huge portion of society or markets, we might lose something. And our brains will tell us that loss is more harmful than all the gains are helpful. This is why the twice as good argument makes sense as a general rule for politics.
An example. The United States healthcare system is really a mess. We pay WAY more for our healthcare than other countries, and don’t get better outcomes for it. Interestingly enough, most Americans want a European-style single payer system.
The pros and cons of a single payer healthcare system is another post for another time but it’s hard to make the argument that it wouldn’t be an improvement for patients. The question, as it relates to abortion, is this: if most people want this system, why don’t politicians try to sell it to voters?
The answer that fits best is a fear of loss. Think about Obamacare for a minute. It’s hugely popular now that it’s been around for a while, but this wasn’t always the case. For the earliest days of Obamacare it was really—really—unpopular, and Democrats got absolutely obliterated in the 2010 elections because of it. Why? Because Republicans were great at selling the losses. “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it” won lie of the year. Republicans kept telling voters over and over how much they stood to lose from Obamacare, and Democrats did a terrible job of telling voters what they stood to gain. Now that voters actually have seen what they gained from the law, overturning it would be internalized as a loss for voters, so Republicans have given up trying.
But, just as bad as Democrats were at selling Obamacare (not even close to twice as good as Republicans were at bashing it), Republicans are even worse at selling abortion bans.
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Roe v. Wade was the five decade status quo. Even people who aren’t big fans of abortion were fans of Roe because they knew what abortion law was and what it wasn’t. When Republicans took that away by overturning Roe they created a loss for voters. Something voters had—a constitutional right to abortion—they no longer had. Voters have valued the loss of this right more than they valued the right itself, and this is normal human behavior. For the loss of this right to be a political winner for Republicans they would have had to sell this abortion ban at least twice as well as Democrats bashed it.
Instead, Republicans have let the crazies take over the clown car.
Almost immediately Republicans pushed for a national abortion ban—undercutting Justice Samuel “Not True” Alito’s argument that all he was doing was letting states decide their own abortion policies. They have argued against the reasonable position that there ought to be exceptions to abortion bans for things like rape or incest. They have set of bombs with their reaction to dreadful stories like a 10 year old having to cross state lines to abort a rape pregnancy. Even Republican legislators didn’t know how draconian their own abortion bans would be. Then there is the Michigan Republican candidate for Governor arguing that forcing a victim to have their rapist’s baby would help them heal.
Look, this may be the case for some rape victims, but sexual abuse has devastating consequences—including health consequences. Even if some rape victims do find healing from raising their child, there is nothing to suggest this is common, or even expected. So, the idea that government should impose this on all rape victims is really dumb politics, and might be really unhealthy for the mothers and the babies.
So, Republicans have been doing quite the opposite of selling the abortion bans. Democrats, on the other hand, have sold the loss of the right to abortion exactly the way they would have needed to.
We have to give Democrats credit for not going all in on an abortion free for all. The more hard core abortion activists, who take positions that would expand abortion WAY beyond what the median voter thinks is reasonable, have been kept to the political margins so the Democrats could play the smarter game. Nobody who matters is talking about abortion on demand laws.
Instead, Democrats have highlighted the losses, and sold a return to the 50 year status-quo. Bizarrely, Republicans have also been highlighting the losses, and attempting to sell even more losses. This has been so bad politically that Republicans are racing to purge their websites of all mentions of abortion, after trying to one-up each other in anti-abortion fanaticism to win their party’s nomination.
It’s a rare moment of Democrats being on message, and quality candidate Republicans being way off the deep end.
The losses from inflation and the pandemic are dissipating, but the loss of a constitutional right still looms large, and Republicans seem intent on keeping it front and center. Republicans seem to want voters to watch their butt fumble from every angle possible.
So, here is one more angle of Republicans abortion politics.
Happy football season, everyone.
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