The Dispatch Podcast - The Future of the Pro-Life Movement

Episode Date: October 2, 2023

Jon Schweppe, policy director at the American Principles Project, joins Andrew to discuss the state of the pro-life movement: political uncertainty, mixed messaging, states rights, and next steps. Show Notes: Jon's profile at the American Principles Project Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Phenomenal launch into the air. Absolutely incredible. Air Transat. Fly the seven-time world's best leisure airline champions, Air Transat. Hello and welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Andrew Eger, Associate Editor at the Dispatch, editor of our Dispatch Politics Newsletter. I'm joined today by John Schweppie, who's policy director for the American Principles Project here in D.C. John is a smart guy and a friend. He's always interesting to talk to on social issues.

He also does not hail from what we might consider the dispatch corner of the conservative coalition. He describes himself as more of a populist than a conservative, although I think a little bit fluid some of these definitions. And I hope you enjoy the conversation. Welcome to the Disband Podcast. Andrew, thanks so much for having me. Your organization, the American Principles Project, is a socially conservative organization that is primarily concerned, which I think is interesting, not with abortion, but with some of the more recent social issues that have started to motivate Republican voters, issues

touching some of the broader and arguably more inscrutable category of wokeness, trans issues, attempts to ban or regulate online porn, stuff like that. So I think it's probably fair to say you're a fellow traveler of the pro-life movement, but not actually a card-carrying professional member of that movement, which hopefully will facilitate the conversation that I'm hoping to have today, which is essentially just how much trouble is that pro-life movement in. So I guess I just want to start out with that sort of broad strokes question about where the pro-life movement finds itself today.

Last year in June, you get Dobbs, the Supreme Court case that ends Roe v. Wade. It's this culmination of decades of judicial effort, real high-water mark. then in November pro-lifers see America go to the ballot box and the pro-life side loses on the ballot every single place it's directly on the ballot, red states and blue states, and Democrats see this huge boost on the issue nationally, even in places where it's not directly on the ballot. And meanwhile, at the same time, there's data that has started to emerge to suggest that the number of abortions taking place in America has not actually fallen since Dobbs, although some women who want to procure them are obviously having to work harder to do that now that some of these state level restrictions have gone in. So was the year 2022 on net a positive or a negative for the pro-life movement? I mean, that's a tough question because obviously overturning Roe has been a long-term goal of the pro-life movement and necessary to really ever obtain. any sort of victory down the road. So I think you have to look at it as a positive in the long term. Certainly in terms of the short term, you know, we, let's not forget, you know, before

Dobbs, you know, people are looking at the pro-life issue as a political winner. You know, they were talking about it as something that you could use against Democrats in campaign commercials and elections. Nobody was really running away from it, not to a great degree anyway, on the right. And that's changed. And so I think, you know, that's what we're talking about here today. Obviously, the pro-life movement has to recalibrate a little bit, figure out what's next and how to be organized. But, you know, I think what really happened after Dobbs was two things. One was that, you know, the pro-life movement was a little bit scattered in terms of what the next step is. And I think a lot of folks, especially more grassroots activist types, were excited and thought, okay, we can finally end this scourge that's been on America for so long.

we can save all these babies. Let's not give an inch. Let's not compromise. Let's go full personhood. And you see that, especially, you know, if you look at like the Christian nationalists and some of these folks. I mean, they are no apologies, no compromise. Anyone who wants to compromise is a squish. But the reality is because we have this kind of discombobulated pro-life movement, you know, they approach the Republican Party with mixed messaging. And so the Republican Party wasn't sure really what to do. A lot of these folks, you know, in Congress or I guess you could say establishment Republicans weren't necessarily super passionate about this issue anyway. They didn't want to talk about it. And so you just had over the few months after Dobbs this complete chaos on the issue. And that led, I think, to the worst position of the pro-life

movement had ever been as we went into the midterms in 2022. Yeah, I want to talk about some of the you mentioned the mixed messaging. And that's something I've heard from a number of pro-life advocates, activists kind of picking up the pieces since those midterms, a lot of whom will argue that the kind of electoral bloodletting that you saw was not necessarily as bad as it looked. I mean, they bring up this mixed messaging. They talk about the fact that a lot of Republicans ran away from the issue of abortion. They just kind of hoped other things like inflation or the border or the economy were going to kind of, that's two economy things, we're going to kind of outweigh voters and that they

can kind of afford to lose voters on this issue, ended up not really being the case. It ended up being the case that Democrats saw huge gains on this. And so they say, well, next time around, we can't let that happen again. We can't let Democrats define us on this again. Instead, we need to kind of plant our flag in a defensible place. Can you just talk a little bit about what groups like yours see as like kind of what those next steps ought to be for Republican messaging on this issue? Well, first, I think we have to recognize that the Democrats did find a extremely strong political attack. They spent, I think it was, $500 million in the midterms, according to the New York Times, on abortion ads. That number's likely to go even larger in

2024. The Democrats have already kind of, you know, said that, that this is the issue they really want to focus on. And, you know, Republicans, I think, look at that and they think, oh, you know, this is a reason to continue to hide from the issue. You even have, you know, Donald Trump has been out there saying, hey, abortion is the reason we lost in 2022. We've got to get away from this. I think the problem is, you know, when you have an attack like, you know, what the Democrats were saying, which is basically Republicans want the 11-year-old girl in Ohio who is raped to be forced to give birth. They want the woman with the medical condition, the ectopic pregnancy to die on the operating table. These types of attacks are like 85 percent of Americans are like

get the abortion, please. Like, do not. And so when that's what we're up against, and Republicans are pivoting literally to inflation, which is what happened in 2022, you didn't see a lot of, besides from like Susan B. Anthony list, you didn't see a lot of abortion advertising where, you know, they're attacking the Democrats on their extremism or whatever, that kind of settled in. And so I think for a lot of normy voters, they did go to the polls thinking about abortion. And their impression of Republicans was that they want to ban it in all cases, no exceptions. So our position at APP, and I think other groups have taken this position as well, is you have to have a counter, you know, that's still always going to be a vulnerability for the pro-life movement.

It's not ground that will ever, I think, win. I mean, it's maybe way down the road, but it's challenging, right? Those are, the exceptions are difficult. That's why exceptions end up in all these bills to begin with. But, you know, we do win on certain issues. Like you look at The 15-week bill, obviously, is one where Gallup has pulled it, all sorts of folks have pulled it, and, you know, large pluralities or even majorities of Americans support 15-week bills with exceptions. Even the heartbeat bill, the six-week bill, often you'll see pluralities and sometimes majorities supporting. So I think if Republicans can organize and get behind one strategy of what they want to do and really message that and then also counter it with, hey, you know, Democrats, like this new Democratic senator,

LaFanza Butler and abortion radical, they support abortion all the way up to the moment of birth. That's pretty extreme. We don't want that. You send that attack out there against their attack, and then maybe it muddies the water a little bit, and you can talk about some of the other issues in a winning way. I guess the thing that I wonder about when I hear this, and you hear this sort of thing all the time, about the way that it is possible to go out and do public opinion polling about about specific limits about specific types of restriction and get a positive response from voters. At the same

time, you could argue that that is perhaps one of the things that kind of lulled the pro-life movement into a sort of sense of unearned security going into these midterms where, you know, maybe when a pollster picks the phone calls you, the median voter behaves in a certain way. But when it's actually on the ballot, I mean, at least based on the data we have right now, it seems they have been moving a different direction, where it was not just an issue of sort of muddled messaging that caused these ballot initiatives to fail that pro-lifers wanted to see succeed, even in Kansas and Kentucky and Montana. And, you know, this cycle, we're seeing a real push from pro-choice groups to get similar measures on the ballot in places like South Dakota and Ohio. And Republicans are really backpedaling and kind of just very much playing defense. this cycle. So how do you reconcile those two kinds of data point? Like, like, is there something

where even if you maybe have 50% plus of people, in theory on this issue, they're just not showing up when it comes to actually implementing public policy? Well, a big part of it, and we see that on every issue, you have to actually compete in the public square to win. So when Democrats are, you know, the ones who are monopolizing, the advertising, you know, world with this issue, of course are going to start, you know, pulling people to their side. And I think in some of these state referendums, that's actually what we're seeing. We're seeing the pro-life message either be muddied or being outspent or both, right? And so they're in a tough situation. Ohio, very similar situation where we had, you know, Amendment 1 and, you know, a little bit disappointing result

earlier. Hopefully November will go better. But again, it's all sorts of muddied messaging. I think we just have to be very clear on what we support. And that's where, you know, ultimately, I should say this too, when you're doing all these different state efforts, you know, you are dividing the pro-life movement, which is underfunded compared to the left, right? Completely. And so then, you know, you're in a situation where if you go state by state, the left can kind of divide and conquer. And I think they've been doing that really well on this issue.

And so that's why, you know, I really think it makes a lot of sense to make a federal argument, where if we leave it to the states, which some squishy Republican politicians have said, you know, I think we're going to lose. And so just practically speaking, you do something at the federal level, you make this a federal argument, you know, a national limit at 15 weeks or whatever, then you can actually start to win on it. I did want to mention something as well on this, which is that your point on polling is absolutely correct. How you frame this determines what voters think. So if you say a national abortion ban, which is what the Democrats have run with, it polls pretty badly for the pro-life side. Sounds bad, right?

national abortion ban, that sounds like every abortion. That's why they say it so often. When you say a common sense limit at 15 weeks, you know, obviously it's a little bit different. Even on the transgender issues, you know, you and I have talked about this a lot, but, you know, Republicans are clearly seeing that banning sex changes for kids and all that is extremely popular. But if you use the Democratic messaging and say they want to end discrimination against trans people, that's pretty popular too, right? So you just have to make sure you're framing it right and actually fighting in the public square. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can

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Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch. to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So when you're talking about, you know, getting this messaging effort, kind of everybody rowing in the same direction, obviously this is a good opportunity to pivot talking about the presidential election because you need if right now, there is no more consensus today among Republican strategists and Republican politicians about about how to kind of get everybody moving in the same direction. No more, no more consensus on that today than there was going going into the 2022 midterms.

So I know I've talked with plenty of pro-life people who say it's so important to have somebody at the top of that ticket who is, who is, you know, essentially whipping the Congress to get behind something like that. That's not really what we're seeing out there from a lot of these candidates right now. And I wanted to ask, I think you mentioned Donald Trump earlier, he has opted for a different path this time around, where you can essentially argue that he has made the choice that or made the calculations. that pro-lifers are essentially a net liability going into 2024. Where does that leave these strategies? I mean, he's the frontrunner for the nomination. You think that pro-lifers probably get crushed again in this next election. If there is not somebody leading from the front on this, where does that leave you?

I mean, it's not good. I think he's clearly making a mistake here by kind of accepting this, what I would call a false dichotomy of what happened in 2022, which is basically, you know, there's two sides to this. either abortion caused us to lose or Trump caused us to lose. I wonder where Trump's going to fall on that one, right? But I don't think it is actually just those two things. I mean, I think there's a lot that went into it, especially on our economic message, which I thought was, frankly, very weak.

You know, we were pointing to inflation and crime and saying, oh, this is all the Democratic, you know, the Democratic Party's fault. And I actually don't think voters bought that. I think you look at it, you know, inflation was clearly both parties' fault with some of the spending in Washington. So, you know, on this question of whether there's, you know, kind of a unifying force within the presidential race and can the presidential candidate lead the Republican Party forward, I think we're starting to see encouraging signs if you take Trump out of the equation for a second, which is unfortunate because he's going to be the nominee most likely. But certainly on the debate stage, you've seen the last couple debates more talk about 15 week. Tim Scott was early on this. Mike Pence obviously was good on it. But Tim Scott actually got. Ron DeSantis to commit to it on the stage, which I thought was a big deal.

And then you also look at Trump's specific rhetoric. Now, I don't think you can look at his dismissal of Ron DeSantis signing the six-week bill in Florida as a mistake. I can't remember what word he actually used, but was a pretty bad. Terrible thing. Terrible thing. I don't think you can really apologize for that. But that being said, if you look at the rest of his rhetoric, he is basically saying we want a common sense thing that everyone agrees on. And I think he's leaving himself open to supporting the 15-week ball ultimately.

And so I think that's hopefully where we get him. Maybe you can fix the rhetoric on the heartbeat stuff. But, you know, if we do get a Republican candidate who runs on and then wins on the 15-week thing, I think you'll actually start to see, okay, that's where we're going to go. That's where the strategy is going to be. You might actually see the Republicans rebuild the pro-life movement and start to move forward. I will say that is a perhaps very glass-half-full. kind of way to phrase that. Because I've talked to pro-life people who are kind of quaking at the

knees that Trump will get in there and want to kind of make this kind of compromise and essentially say, we're going to essentially move to like a national 20-week standard, national 25-week standard, something like that, that would actually kind of invalidate state laws like the one that DeSantis passed. I'm curious, like you have these groups like SBA Pro Life America, students for life. One of the main tasks of groups like this, in theory, is to force Republican candidates to tow the line on some of these issues if they want to win their primaries. If you continue to see Trump come out and talk around this issue, basically say, look,

it's in the state's hands now, y'all are doing fine, or we're going to broker some compromise where everybody's happy. And he never budges from that position, and he goes on to win the nomination, does that mean that abortion will have sort of ceased to be a litmus issue for Republicans going forward. Yeah. No, I mean, there's no question that if Trump, let's say he leaned more into this six week as a terrible thing and won, and then won the general, of course, that would be a disaster for the pro-life movement. But, you know, I do think that when you're one of these groups, you really do have to think about the reality of the primary. And what's, I think, scary right now is

it does look like Trump's going to win. No one seems to be challenging him. I know we've talked a lot about DeSantis, who I really, really like. But, you know, it is, if you're looking right now, it is kind of nerve-wracking to think, oh, you know, what if Trump wins and he embraces this full pro-choice position? So I think there's a carrot and stick thing to really consider here if you're a pro-life group who's trying to advance pro-life policies. Certainly, I think for some of these groups to just beat Trump with a stick,

and try to push him that way. That's probably helpful. But, you know, you look at a group that really has a lot of influence and spins and all of that. You know, I think they do have to think about both things and communicating with them and trying to persuade him, right? So, there is that angle, too, which is how can we convince Donald Trump that this issue is actually a winning issue for him, that it's not a liability. You know, he has the wrong people talking to him on that right now. And I'm afraid that the mistake that could be made here is he listens to those people, you know, he hides his head in the sand in 2024 on the issue, and then he loses. And again, that's actually, I would almost argue just as bad, because then, you know, once again,

abortion will be blamed as the reason for the loss. What do you make of some of the trepidation that we have seen, even from some of these other Republican candidates? And you mentioned that DeSantis, during the debate, essentially committed to the 15-week ban. He signed a six-week ban in Florida as governor this past, was it just this year that he signed that? I can't remember now. Yeah, right at the game. Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, you know, it was kind of interesting to watch him come on the national stage and not talk about that very often and kind of sort of dance around questions.

I mean, he's been running for president a long time. And as you say, he only just kind of now has gotten to that 15-week position. And then you can see somebody like Nikki Haley, whose stance has really been like, yeah, okay, I'd sign a 15-week ban if it ever landed on my desk. But I think it's a real mistake for us to be talking about. I mean, it goes right to that strategic issue that we've been talking about. she thinks it's why why are we as Republicans kind of stringing ourselves up by you know pinning ourselves in on this on this stuff where no bill is ever going to get to our desk on this why can't we talk about the the more extreme things that democrats want to do why can't we talk about these

sort of broader consensus type policies you know more support for mothers more support for pregnancy centers all these sorts of things um do you think that the field as a whole is is is kind of lagging behind where you guys would like to see them on this issue more so than just the former president. Well, yeah. Well, to the Nikki Haley point, I mean, I think the reason is we owe it to the voters and practically need to tell them what we support. So if you leave it out there, oh, we just want to support crisis pregnancy centers, you know, people are going to believe what Democrats are saying, and that's how they're going to vote. But I think on DeSantis, you know, one of the things that's disappointed me a little bit is that he did have a huge

opening to really go after Trump, I would say as early as, you know, the beginning of the year when Trump first started to kind of make this argument publicly or as his surrogates did that abortion was why they lost not him. And so we need to moderate on abortion. And for whatever reason, they really didn't do that until recently. You know, DeSantis had this line about, you know, of course, I'll sign anything. You know, I'm pro-life at the end of the day, I'm pro-life. But he really didn't go into the specifics. And I think that's probably, you know, I'm speculating here, but I think that's probably because they saw some polling, like, you know, a national abortion ban in those words is unpopular. People would prefer it, just be returned to the states, which

frankly, if you ask conservatives, states are federal on any issue, they're just going to naturally lean to the states. And I think they probably reacted poorly to that. DeSantis has been someone where that's a strength for him, right? I mean, he's a pro-life hero in a lot of ways, signing a part people in Florida. I mean, that was legitimately, you know, there's tens of thousands of abortions every year in Florida. So that's a huge deal. And I think they missed out on that. Now, hopefully, you know, there's still time to pivot. Maybe they can make an issue of it now. But we are running out of time. I mean, Iowa's coming up. And as it stands right now, you know, it's not where you'd like to see the frontrunner at on this issue. I think we can leave it there.

John, thank you for joining the dispatch podcast. You know,