With all eyes on the expected Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade will impact the 2022 midterm elections, GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) offered his thoughts on what could happen in January if Republicans win back the Senate.
“Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is similarly reluctant to discuss the issue, calling it premature, but said a national abortion ban is possible if the Supreme Court overturns Roe,” USA Today reported Saturday.
The newspaper interviewed McConnell following a lead to Politico of an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito which would end the right to abortion across America.
“It would depend on where the votes were,” McConnell said of a vote for a national ban.
But McConnell seemed to hint it would occur.
“With regard to the abortion issue, I think it’s pretty clear where Senate Republicans stand,” McConnell explained. “And if and when the court makes a final decision, I expect everybody will be more definitive. But I don’t think it’s much secret where Senate Republicans stand on that issue.”
Columnist Molly Jong-Fast said, “Republicans went from states rights to no rights head spinningly fast.”
Political scholar Norm Ornstein responded, “It was always a con.”
Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said it would be silly to think McConnell would do anything else other than a national ban.
“You don’t go halfway towards achieving your decades long agenda & then quit when victory is in sight. McConnell will drive towards a national ban if he is in power after the midterms,” she predicted. “McConnell told the National Right to Life conference in 2014, that if elected majority leader after the election, he’d push thru legislation limiting a woman’s right to have an abortion. Instead he got us a 6-3 Court. Now a national ban is in his sights.”