Francis Wilkinson, Columnist

GOP Trades Its Moral High Ground on Abortion for Votes

Republicans will remain committed to abortion restrictions only wherever the political price isn’t too high.

October 17, 2023 at 12:00 PM UTC

Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US politics and policy. Previously, he was executive editor for the Week and a writer for Rolling Stone.

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The Republican Party, the political home of a four-decade, church-allied, moral crusade against abortion rights, is having second thoughts.

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported on Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake’s “tactical retreat” from her past position on abortion. Lake, a Donald Trump acolyte and true believer in expediency, had previously cheered for a 19th century Arizona law that criminalized abortion and had called for Arizona to become a “sanctuary state for the unborn.” Now, she has joined Trump and other Republicans who are eager “to recalibrate on an issue that has become a political albatross in battleground states and beyond.”