Too far? Cameron, Coleman follow national trend with flip-flops on abortion exceptions | Opinion

Russell Coleman, who’s hoping to follow his good friend, Daniel Cameron, into the Attorney General’s office, has joined him in the official abortion waffle-off: He now says there should be rape and incest exceptions in Kentucky’s draconian abortion laws.

As we know, what’s good for a primary doesn’t always work in a general election.

Both men filled out Right to Life group questionnaires saying they did not support such exceptions. Now, after polling that has consistently shown Cameron behind Gov. Andy Beshear, both men have changed course. (It’s a safe stance, as it’s extremely unlikely an exceptions bill will become a reality in Kentucky’s General Assembly).

But they are also following a national playbook in which Republicans, who first exulted in Roe’s overturn, are now wondering if they might have gone too far in the ever-fraught abortion debate.

The Supreme Court ruled on Roe in June 2022. States like Kentucky quickly enacted strict abortion bans, many as early as six weeks without rape and incest exceptions. But midterm results, in which the red wave turned very blue, seems to have thrown a damper on ideas to enact a national ban.

In other states, some Republican politicians have stepped back as well. Last year, South Carolina was unable to pass a near total abortion ban because of disagreements over incest and rape exceptions. After a battle, West Virginia included those exceptions in its almost total abortion ban.

During the blue midterms last year, Kentucky defeated a constitutional abortion ban. It has probably not gone unnoticed that since Roe, six other states, including Ohio and Kansas, have held statewide abortion measures and all of them have ended in a pro-choice vote.

Then last month, former President Donald Trump, who appointed the justices who overturned Roe, said Florida’s six-week abortion ban was “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”

J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics’ Crystal Ball, said just this week Sen. Steve Daines, who leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told CNN that he’s advising Republican candidates for Senate to emphasize that they support some exceptions.

“In North Carolina, Lt. Governor Mark Robinson — who is running for governor next year — is about as far-right as they come, but it seems like he’s been trying to take a somewhat more nuanced approach to addressing it,” Coleman noted.

According to a March Pew Research Poll, 69 percent of Americans, including 56 percent of Republicans, said abortion should be legal when the pregnancy resulted from rape.

In an Associated Press article in the spring, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu — a pro-choice Republican who signed a 24-week abortion ban — was blunt.

“Any conversation about banning abortion or limiting it nationwide is an electoral disaster for the Republicans,” Sununu said.

“The Republican Party has an inability to move off this issue in a way that doesn’t scare the heck out the average voter, the independent voter, the younger generation of voters. These guys keep pushing themselves deeper and deeper into an ultra-right base that really does not define the bulk of the Republican Party.”

A safe stance

Shauna Reilly, a political science professor at Northern Kentucky University, says she thinks the softened stance is more due to local polling in the wake of a particularly devastating Beshear ad from an rape survivor who directly addressed Cameron about exceptions.

“Polling numbers are demonstrating this is an issue, and that campaign commercial made it a very specific issue. So, saying you would support a bill that is never coming is a safe bet,” she said.

But some Kentucky conservatives are shooting down even a hint of an exceptions bill. Rep. Emily Callaway, R-Louisville, pushed back against Coleman’s statement about re-traumatizing women by forcing them to have their rapist’s baby.

“Killing your baby is traumatic,” she wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

“To say you don’t want to re-traumatize a woman who has been r4ped so it’s okay to have an ab0rtion is nonsense. How about we help her see the baby as a blessing. Many victimized women testify they are just that. Ending life shouldn’t be an option.”

Two polls released this week show Cameron is still behind Beshear, although the gap varies by poll.

Tamarra Wieder, the Kentucky State Director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, said she thinks it’s a mix of national trends and local polling.

“I think it’s a national trend because abortion is a winning issue nationally and in Kentucky, but they’re also looking at polls and trying course correcting even though they have told Ky Right to Life that they were in support of all of these really extreme and dangerous bans,” she said.

Kentucky has now gone a year with a near total ban on abortion, and people are seeing the effects, Wieder said.

“Someone they know and love has had to see abortion care out of state, or someone has had a complicated pregnancy, so they’re starting to experience the compounding effects of living in a space without reproductive healthcare,” she said.

“Even before the bans, 73 counties did not have any OB-GYNs, so when you layer in the chilling effect of all these bans, it’s even harder to get routine reproductive healthcare.”

When Wieder and others were campaigning against Amendment 2, the constitutional abortion ban, they found a lot of voters were disengaged from Roe’s overturn and Kentucky’s bans.

Not any more if the current political maneuvering is anything to go by. Even in a red state like Kentucky, voters tend to move to the middle. They want some access to abortion, particularly when it comes to rape, incest and the life of the mother.

“They are paying closer attention to abortion politics,” Wieder said. “So, politicians are having to redirect and it’s national.”