Riding what they believe is a surge of enthusiasm in favor of permissive abortion laws, Maine Democrats are moving to establish the most extreme such laws in the nation, seemingly in the belief that Mainers share their point of view on this extremely controversial issue.
A look at the election results from last November and the polling numbers around the issue of abortion, however, show that Democrats are taking risky steps that may cost them significantly at the polls next fall.
A hard look at the election results from last November shows no major shift or surge in Democratic support following the Supreme Court’s reversal of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 2022. In the latest gubernatorial race, for example, there was little change from 2018.
This lack of a major increase in Democrat enthusiasm in the governor’s election was unusual given the massive amount of attention and money directed at the issue of abortion and strongly suggests that the position of most Mainers on the issue was “baked in” as pundits often say. It seems likely that the passion Maine voters feel toward this issue was already deeply felt before the sudden increase in national attention created by the Supreme Court’s reversal on the Roe v. Wade decision. The court’s ruling, then, had only a small persuasive effect, if any at all, on the race for governor.
[RELATED: Maine Media Skews Left on Mills’ Abortion Flipflop…]
Voters also cast their ballots in November after both major candidates voiced exactly the same position on the legality of abortion in Maine. Specifically, this was a commitment to stick with the law as it existed at that time.
!function(r,u,m,b,l,e){r._Rumble=b,r[b]||(r[b]=function(){(r[b]._=r[b]._||[]).push(arguments);if(r[b]._.length==1){l=u.createElement(m),e=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0],l.async=1,l.src=”https://rumble.com/embedJS/u1hfsqm”+(arguments[1].video?’.’+arguments[1].video:”)+”/?url=”+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+”&args=”+encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify([].slice.apply(arguments))),e.parentNode.insertBefore(l,e)}})}(window, document, “script”, “Rumble”); Rumble(“play”, {“video”:”v2fm1bg”,”div”:”rumble_v2fm1bg”});The key sentence in state statutes, one that both Janet Mills and Paul LePage adamantly promised they would not change if elected, is this one: “After viability an abortion may be performed only when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.” With lots of wiggle room in defining the words viability and health, the basic principle is clear, and both candidates promised that they would not allow unlimited, late term abortions, nor support greater restrictions.
The vast majority of Americans has favored this status quo which is often expressed in political terms by the phrase “safe, legal, and rare” originally expressed by Bill Clinton. He and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush, along with many others, have all expressed support for this moderate position.
In the span of three months, however, Janet Mills’ public position went from “safe, legal, and rare” to “as many as possible.”
The heightened awareness of the issue of abortion was the result of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that reversed the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the federal right to abortions but balanced this by also protecting prenatal life. In the Mississippi case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization the court ruled “the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
Not a single abortion was legalized or prohibited by the court’s ruling in Dobbs. It simply reverted the decision on whether abortion was legal and in what circumstances back to the states. From the ruling: “the Court does not today hold that the Constitution compels abortion on demand. It does not today pronounce that a pregnant woman has an absolute right to abortion.”
During a gubernatorial debate last October, a questioner inquired of Mills, “would you support removing the current viability restriction in Maine’s law?”
Mills replied without hesitating.
“No. I support the current Maine law,” she said.
The questioner pressed further.
“After 28 weeks though, that would mean, that would remain illegal in Maine?”
Mills replied clearly and without hesitation.
“The current law. I have no plans to change the current law,” she said.
Yet just twelve days after her inauguration, Mills took exactly the opposite approach.
She backed a Governor’s bill to rewrite Maine law to ensure that “decisions about abortions are made by women and doctors—not politicians.” (Note: the law she said that she supported during her campaign was enacted by politicians.)
This philosophy of governing, however, conflicts directly with Mills’ position on a 2019 law titled “An Act to Prohibit the Provision of Conversion Therapy to Minors by Certain Licensed Professionals.” This bill codified in law a decision by legislators to prohibit a medical practice whether or not an individual’s medical provider found the therapy to be worth trying. Regardless of one’s personal feelings on that specific therapy, the principle is clear. Either legislators, nearly all of whom are not medical doctors, have a right to meddle with individual medical decisions or they do not. On one medical issue, Mills’ position is that “Fundamentally, these decisions are decisions that should be made by a woman and her medical provider,” but on another, she signed a law banning a medical option even if an individual medical provider believed it to be a useful treatment.
In choosing the opposite course of action on these two issues, Mills and most of her Democratic colleagues have shown a political hypocrisy that is not founded in consistent principles, but rather in political expediency, dressed in the garb of medical righteousness. Either government can interfere with medical decisions that she claims should be left to a person and their medical provider, or it cannot.
Mills’ proposed changes in laws would make Maine the most liberal state in the nation on the issue of abortion, removing every restriction right up to the moment of birth, so long as a doctor consents. This legalizes the extreme situation where a mother who is in labor and about to give birth can instead abort the child for any reason so long as a doctor agrees.
By presenting this extreme new legal approach, Democrats are taking a big risk that doing so is popular with voters and that they will suffer no significant backlash at the polls because of it. The numbers, however, indicate that they are wrong on this point. Mainers may not be as solidly Democrat or as supportive of abortion as they believe.
Mills won the election in 2018 with less than 51% of the vote. Prior to this, no Democrat candidate had received a majority of votes in a race for Maine governor since 1982—thirty-six years. The unusual absence of a third-party candidate in the latest race and the growth of the number of registered Democrats, among other things, led to a Democrat victory. 2018, however, was also the first time since 1988—30 years—that Democrats received a majority of votes in any statewide election.
Mills widened her winning margin in 2022, but only by roughly the amount that had been won by Terry Hayes, a lifelong Democrat who ran for governor as an independent in 2018. Combining the votes cast for Hayes and Mills shows that Democrat candidates in the race received 56.8% of the vote that year, but only 55.7% in 2022. Despite widespread conclusions that the election was decided on the issue of abortion, the numbers show no surge in Democrat votes and therefore no sudden boost following the Supreme Court
Combining the votes cast for Hayes and Mills shows that Democrat candidates in the race received 56.8% of the vote that year, but only 55.7% in 2022. Despite widespread conclusions that the election was decided on the issue of abortion, the numbers show no surge in Democrat votes and therefore no sudden boost following the Supreme Court decision.
Also in 2022, Republicans closed the gap in the state’s House of Representatives from a 32 seat Democrat advantage when Mills took office to just 15 seats. Clearly, there is no overwhelming support of all Democrats on all issues, including abortion, and on that issue, Maine Democrats are way to the left of even their own party’s mainstream. If this was not the case, Mills would not have so forcefully claimed she would not change the more moderate existing law in order to get reelected.
According to a Gallup poll from last month, two-thirds of Americans say abortion should be legal but in no more than the first three months. Still, 75 percent of independents and 42 percent of Democrats want some limits on abortion. Only about one-third of the population wants abortion to be available in all circumstances as Maine Democrats now propose.
Closer to home, in a University of New Hampshire poll of Mainers last month, half said they strongly support a law allowing abortion in the third trimester but only if it is deemed medically necessary. While Maine’s proposed law would require the consent of a medical provider, that consent is not tied to necessity or any risk to the health of the mother.
As they have on a number of high profile issues, from their ultra-partisanship—especially on the budget—to forcing a specific idea of sexuality into classrooms as early as kindergarten, to fighting against parents’ right to know what is happening with their child in school, and many other issues, Democrats in Maine have moved their party far outside the mainstream, even for a state whose electorate leans well left of center.
As happy as they may be with the instant gratification of these short-term decisions, this lurch leftward may cost the majority party dearly next fall when their legislative candidates have to answer to their constituents face-to-face and one at a time on the campaign trail.
