Polls show it consistently, over and over again: Most Americans do not want abortion banned. Sure, they will tell pollsters they "morally oppose" abortion or that they're "pro-life," but that's more a reflection of lingering American puritanism and a tendency to moralize about other people's sex lives. When asked bluntly about the right to have an abortion, however, the polling is clear: People do not want it taken away. People may think others are slutty sluts who have too much sex, but they believe that they personally are having the right amount of the right kind of sex, thank you very much, and want to retain the right to deal with any unwanted pregnancies that may result. So it shouldn't have been a surprise that voters in Kansas on Tuesday affirmed the right to abortion, blocking efforts by the GOP-controlled government to join the other red states rushing to ban abortion in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned.
The overwhelming defeat of the anti-choice referendum came despite a very heavy Republican thumb on the scale going into Election Day. Republicans scheduled the vote at an odd time of year when way more Republicans would turn out than Democrats. The language of the ballot initiative was confusing, clearly meant to trick people who wanted to protect abortion into voting the wrong way. Advocates of the ballot initiative lied about the initiative, blasting voters with texts that falsely claimed a "yes" vote supported "choice," when in reality, a "yes" vote was to ban abortion. They ran ads with the misleading claim that a "yes" vote does not ban abortion. Due to all of that misinformation, polls as recently as a couple of weeks ago suggested this would be a nail-biter.
