Democrats Seek To Make GOP Pay for Threats to Reproductive Rights – KFF Health News

scheduled tribe. Charles, Mohd. -Democrat Lucas Coons is trying to impose a reproductive care ban on senators. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), betting that would increase his chances of leaving his current post in November.

recently advertising campaign, Koons accused Hawley of endangering reproductive care, including in vitro fertilization. Looking straight into the camera, with tears in her eyes, a Missouri mom, identified only as Jessica, tells how she struggled for years to conceive.

“There are efforts now to ban IVF, and Josh Hawley got them started,” says Jessica. “I want Josh Hawley to look me in the eye and tell me I can’t have the baby I deserve.”

Never mind that IVF is legal in Missouri, or that Hawley has said he supports limited access to abortion as a “pro-life” Republican. Democrats in key races across the country are blasting their Republican rivals as a threat to women’s health after the Supreme Court decision sparked a sweeping decline in reproductive rights. roe vs wadeThat includes nearly complete state abortion bans, efforts to restrict medication abortion, and a court decision limiting IVF in Alabama.

In addition to messaging campaigns, Democrats hope ballot measures to guarantee abortion rights in 13 states, including Missouri, Arizona and Florida, will help boost turnout in their favor.

The issue puts the GOP on the defensive, he said J Miles ColemanAn election analyst at the University of Virginia.

“I don’t think Republicans have found a good way to respond to this yet,” he said.

For example, abortion is such a prominent issue in Arizona that election analysts say one seat in the U.S. House is likely to be held by Republicans. juan siccomani is now a toss-up,

Hawley appears to be in less danger at the moment. He has a wide lead in the polls, according to campaign finance reports, though Coons overtook him in the most recent quarter, receiving donations of $2.25 million, compared to the incumbent’s $846,000. Nevertheless, Hawley’s war chest is more than twice the size of Koons’s.

Koons, a Marine veteran and antitrust advocate, said he likes his circumstances.

“I don’t think we will lose,” he told KFF Health News. “Missourians want freedom and the ability to control their lives.”

Hawley’s campaign declined to comment. He has supported a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks and has said that he supports exceptions for rape and incest and protecting the lives of pregnant women. Missouri’s state ban is almost complete, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

“This is Josh Hawley’s mission in life. This is his family’s business,” Kuns said, pointing. Erin Morrow HawleyThe senator’s wife, a lawyer, argued before the Supreme Court in March on behalf of activists seeking to limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

State abortion rights have won everywhere they’ve been on the ballot since the end of Roe deer In 2022, including Republican-led Kentucky and Ohio.

An abortion rights ballot initiative is also expected in Montana, where Republicans will challenge Democrats. john tester Can decide on control of the Senate.

On historic Main Street in St. Charles, Missouri, on a Saturday in late April, people holding makeshift clipboards made of yard signs from past elections led locals strolling on the brick sidewalk to sign a petition to put the initiative on Missouri ballots. Invited for. Nearby, diners in this affluent St. Louis suburb enjoyed lunch on a patio under a canopy of trees.

Missouri was the first state to ban abortion Roe deer fell; It is outlawed except in “cases of medical emergency”. The measure would add the right to abortion to the state constitution.

Larry Bax, 65, of St. Charles County said he votes Republican most of the time but he signed the ballot petition with his wife, Debbie Bax, 66.

“We were never single-issue voters. Never in our lives,” he said. “It’s made us single-issue because it’s so wrong.”

They won’t vote for Hawley this fall, he said, but are unsure whether they will support the Democratic nominee.

Jim Seidel, 64, who lives in Wright City, 50 miles west of St. Louis, also signed the petition. He said he believes Missourians should have the opportunity to vote on the issue.

“I’ve been a Republican my entire life until quite recently,” Seidel said. “It’s been really weird.”

He plans to vote for Kunce in November if he wins the Democratic primary in August, which seems likely. Seidel had previously voted for some Democrats, including Bill Clinton and Claire McCaskill, whom Hawley had ousted as senator six years earlier.

“Most of the time,” he said, Hawley “is completely in the wrong camp.”

Over nearly two hours in conservative St. Charles, KFF Health News observed only one person actively refusing to sign the petition. The woman told the volunteers that she and her family oppose abortion rights and left immediately. The Catholic Church has discouraged voters from signing. For example, at St. Joseph Parish in a nearby suburb, a sign flashed: “Refuse to sign the reproductive health petition!”

However, ballot organizers collected more than double the required number of signatures on May 3, and are now awaiting certification from the Secretary of State’s office.

Larry Bax’s concerns go beyond abortion and voting in Missouri. She is concerned about greater government limits on reproductive care, such as IVF or birth control. “How much further can that reach go?” He said. Coons is counting on enough voters feeling the same way as Bax and Seidel to get him the same kind of upset that happened for the same seat in 2012 — also on abortion. McCaskill defeated Republican Todd Akin that year, largely due to his infamous response when asked about abortion: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Are.”