House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) does not see a path to a nationwide abortion ban.
Despite Johnson’s long history of being an anti-abortion advocate, both as a lawyer and as a representative, his new role as a leader has forced him to put some strong beliefs aside in the name of governance. With a law background, he’s looking at it from a different perspective.
“No, I don’t,” Johnson told Politico when asked if he had any plans to push for a nationwide abortion ban during a second Trump presidency.
It’s a move away from his views from when he was a rank-and-file member. Then, he co-sponsored federal legislation that would have banned abortion around the six-week mark. He was critical of the legality of Roe v. Wade before it was overturned. He endorsed Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion that the Supreme Court cases that provide the standing for same-sex marriage and restrictions on the use of contraception should be revisited.
“There’s been some really bad law made,” he said. “They’ve made a mess of our jurisprudence in this country for the last several decades. And maybe some of that needs to be cleaned up.”
Abortion bans have been political kryptonite for Republicans since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. The half-century-long fight to demolish the legal precedent that made it nearly impossible for states to restrict abortion was a major victory for former President Donald Trump but has proved to be a lead weight for candidates since.
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Deep-red states, such as Ohio, saw voters reject strict abortion rules out of hand, and the 2022 midterm elections that were supposed to result in massive majorities for the GOP turned out to be something Democrats look back fondly on.
Johnson’s pivot away from his comments that “the killing of unborn children has been the greatest atrocity that’s been committed in our society” isn’t necessarily a denunciation of his anti-abortion views. But a clear rejection of any plan to introduce now or in the future a federal abortion ban could signal a sea change in how Republicans are preparing to handle the fallout from the new reality they are in.
