Pro-Abortion Groups Ramp Up Spending ahead of Elections - But So Do Pro-Life Groups
With a presidential election around the corner and Roe v. Wade two years in the grave, both pro-abortion and pro-life groups are ramping up spending over the coming months.
Pro-abortion groups are reportedly dumping over $150 million into political campaigns, lobbying efforts, and ads in an effort to expand abortion across the country. A pro-abortion coalition called Abortion Access Now — comprised of nine organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), and Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), among others — announced on Monday it would be dedicating $100 million over the next 10 years “to codify the right to abortion…” The campaign will focus its resources on “lobbying efforts, grassroots organizing, public education, and comprehensive communication strategies to mobilize support and enact change.”
“The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has opened the floodgates to politicians enacting extreme abortion bans and enforcing outdated and harmful laws,” the coalition said in a statement, acknowledging the two-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe. “Anti-abortion lawmakers have already banned or severely restricted abortion in 21 states with devastating consequences, and they won’t stop until they can force a nationwide ban on abortion and push care out of reach entirely, even in states that have protected abortion access.”
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) has also launched a spate of online ads to be featured on “popular lifestyle, fashion, beauty and recipe websites,” promoting abortion and attacking Senate Republicans for pro-life positions. DSCC spokesperson Annie Lentz claimed, “Senate Republicans have spent years using every tool they have to take away women’s right to make our own health care decisions. … These ads will remind voters of the threat GOP Senate candidates pose to our rights, freedoms, and health and why they must be defeated in November.”
Lentz added, “The anniversary of the Republican Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade underscores the stakes of this year’s Senate elections and the importance of protecting Democrats’ Senate majority with the power to confirm or deny Supreme Court justices.”
Similarly, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) announced earlier this year its own series of campaigns in 18 congressional districts across seven states. The DCCC said that it wants abortion to be “top of mind” for voters, especially in states where pro-abortion constitutional amendments will be appearing on November’s ballots. The campaign is designed to ensure “that reproductive freedom will remain a driving issue for voters this November, putting vulnerable House Republicans and GOP candidates on the hook for their anti-abortion and anti-freedom positions,” according to a DCCC memo.
The Biden campaign has also focused its attention on abortion, making the killing of unborn children its centerpiece. Biden reelection campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon said, “There is no doubt that this issue is central to the contrast between us and Trump. There is no way he can wiggle out of his ownership of this issue.” The Biden campaign also launched a series of pro-abortion ads in Arizona, shortly after the state’s Supreme Court revived a pre-Roe pro-life law, targeting Trump and other Republicans. “Because of Donald Trump, millions of women lost the fundamental freedom to control their own bodies,” Biden intones in one of the ads. “The question is — if Donald Trump gets back in power, what freedom will you lose next? Your body and your decision belong to you, not the government, not Donald Trump.” He concludes, “I will fight like hell to get your freedom back.” The Biden campaign spent over $1 million on the ads.
The Biden PAC Future Forward will also spend a reported $250 million on ads supporting the pro-abortion president in what the group touts as the largest single purchase of political advertising in American history. $140 million will be spent on television ads and $110 million on digital and online ads beginning once the Democratic Convention concludes in August and continuing through election day in November.
California’s Governor Gavin Newsom (D) followed suit, funding a series of pro-abortion ads through his pro-abortion PAC Campaign for Democracy. The ads targeted pro-life laws in other states, such as Alabama and Tennessee, and blamed “Trump Republicans” for pro-life legislation. Newsom has, in the past, also funneled campaign money into billboard initiatives in other states, encouraging women to travel to California for abortions.
Planned Parenthood Votes, the abortion behemoth’s political activist wing, will also spend a reported $40 million on pro-abortion advertising, it announced this week. The ads will mostly be in support of Biden and other Democrats and will again attempt to smear Republicans as “extreme” for promoting pro-life legislation. “Abortion will be the message of this election, and it will be how we energize voters. It will be what enables us to win,” Planned Parenthood Votes executive director Jenny Lawson said.
She added that “for politicians like Donald Trump who oppose abortion … the end goal has always been full control of our bodies and our medical decisions.” Local Planned Parenthood organizations and affiliates will also run and fund their own campaigns in various states, with an emphasis on promoting ballot measures to place a “right” to abortion in state constitutions.
However, pro-life organizations are also spending on campaigns to defend the unborn. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, one of the nation’s largest and most prominent pro-life groups, is spending $92 million on a massive voter contact initiative. The largest voter contact initiative in the group’s history, it will focus on Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Montana, and Georgia and is expected to reach approximately 10 million voters.
“This election cycle will be our largest ground game yet as we will focus on key battleground states to win a pro-life Senate and elect a National Defender of Life as president,” said SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser in comments to The Washington Stand. “We will take no voter for granted, whether they are pro-life and don’t vote consistently or can be persuaded to vote pro-life when they hear how radical the Democrats have become. We must not grow weary in our pursuit to serve mothers and save children.”
“Life is the human rights issue of our time and the pivotal issue in 2024 elections,” Dannenfelser continued. “Pro-abortion Democrats have declared they are going all in on abortion on demand through all nine months, as their number one campaign issue.” She noted that pro-abortion groups are already spending unprecedented sums on political campaigns and are calling to not only codify Roe v. Wade but expand abortion in the constitution. She explained, “This is why we must have pro-life candidates that go on offense and communicate the ‘three C’s.’ They must be clear about their support against painful late-term abortions, they must have compassion for women facing unplanned pregnancies and they must contrast by exposing their opponents’ extreme stance of pushing unlimited taxpayer-funded abortions on demand.”
“Laws protecting unborn children are meant to do just that — protect unborn children,” said Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council. “An innocent child in the womb has no voice to speak for herself, and so, it is even more essential that pro-life laws protect her.”
Szoch continued, “As President Trump said at the March for Life, ‘Every child is a precious and sacred gift from God. Together, we must protect, cherish, and defend the dignity and sanctity of every human life. When we see the image of the baby in the womb, we glimpse the majesty of God’s creation.’ This is why it is important to campaign in defense of life.”
S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.