Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll take a look at how abortion rights fared on election night and how abortion access is fairing in America post-Dobbs. Republican-led Ohio voted to enshrine abortion rights, as you probably heard on the news by now, into the state constitution. In Virginia, where Republicans pushed to outlaw most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, Democrats took control of the state legislature. Very interesting result from Virginia that we'll talk about.

Also, in ruby-red Kentucky, voters re-elected a Democratic governor who attacked his Republican opponent for supporting the state's near-total abortion ban. We'll talk about whether these election results might be a bellwether for 2024. We'll talk about the findings of the first full-year census of US abortion providers, the Society of Family Planning's WeCount project, which found that despite the Dobbs decision, the total number of legal abortions in the country increased slightly. Shefali Luthra is with us. She is a healthcare reporter at The 19th, a non-profit newsroom covering gender and equity. Shefali, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Shefali Luthra: Thank you so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start in Ohio, though we probably don't have to linger there too much because people have been hearing this in the news last night and this morning. In interesting detail, 18 Ohio counties backed Trump in 2020 and voted in favor of abortion rights yesterday. Does that paint the clearest picture that Republicans running for office have to deal with this issue maybe in a different way?

Shefali Luthra: It certainly seems that way. We know that the Republican stance on abortion is incredibly unpopular, and it is unpopular across the board. Voters don't support abortion bans. They also largely don't trust Republicans on the issue. That's true, even in polling that is unfavorable to Joe Biden. This is just not a winning issue for them. They haven't found a stance where they can really convince voters that their priorities will be taken care of.

I think what's really revealing about Ohio is that this was the first time that a conservative-leaning state voted to affirmatively protect abortion rights as opposed to simply rejecting restrictions. It certainly raises questions for moving forward. How will these kinds of measures potentially fare in other states where the politics are more complicated, say Florida or Missouri or Arizona, where there are efforts underway to get abortion rights protections on the 2024 ballot?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and Ohio was the only state this year that had an abortion rights referendum. I wonder if you have a take on why the abortion rights proponents didn't wait until next year as they are in other states. I'm guessing that they're targeting many of these referenda in swing states assuming that they're going to do well and that they're going to bring out more Democratic voters so they get, at least potentially, a two for there by putting an abortion rights referendum on the ballot in a congressional election year, but they didn't do that in Ohio. Do you know why?

Shefali Luthra: I think it's still early to understand exactly what happened. We do know that often off your elections favor really high-engagement voters, people who are just more excited to vote, care more about the political process. It wouldn't be surprising if right what we saw could have played into that, the idea that people turned out because they are engaged and know about abortion and care about the issue.

I think the other thing to consider is that there's a real practical implementation factor as well, which is that the Ohio State Supreme Court was deciding whether to let the state's six-week abortion ban take effect. The fact that this amendment has passed, it staves that off. It means that the six-week ban that was in effect for a couple of months cannot be enforced again because it is no longer constitutional. I think we can't ignore that element of this as well.

Brian Lehrer: You said "Arizona" and you said "more complicated." Do you think an abortion rights referendum in that very important swing state next year is going to be a more complicated proposition than we've seen in Ohio and elsewhere?

Shefali Luthra: I think it's really early to know because we don't know yet if that measure will make it onto the ballot. We don't know what the funding looks like. This was a very expensive race in Ohio. Every abortion rights measure that has passed through the ballot has been very expensive. I think there are questions that we need to monitor and be asking about how many resources go into this and the sense of urgency that voters have in Arizona because, in every state, abortion bans are unpopular, but every state's politics are also slightly different in terms of how much voters prioritize the issue.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some phone calls for reporter, Shefali Luthra from The 19th, on how abortion fared in elections yesterday and prospects for abortion rights as an issue in 2024. We'll also get to that study that showed an increase in the number of abortions in the United States after the Dobbs decision, surprisingly. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text.

Virginia in yesterday's elections, I find this one really interesting and maybe the most interesting. For people who don't know, Governor Glenn Youngkin, Republican, not up for re-election himself, has been proposing a 15-week abortion ban. In Virginia, one House of the legislature was controlled by Democrats. The other, by Republicans. He was hoping to flip the Democratic House to red and then he could get this 15-week abortion ban through. Well, the opposite happened. The House that was Republican flipped to Democrat and people say it was largely because of this issue. Is that how you see it?

Shefali Luthra: I think that is the reading that makes the most sense. This was a defining issue for the campaign. We know that the majority of Virginia voters do not want more abortion restrictions. We know that this was a top issue, maybe not the top issue, but quite high up there for voters in the state, especially Democrats, especially women who are the people most likely to be affected by abortion restrictions.

Brian Lehrer: My impulse is to think that this is even more important than just a yes or no because Youngkin was positioning this as sort of a consensus or moderate position on abortion rights and trying to portray the Democrats as the extremists for wanting more than 15 weeks of access. I could see a scenario where if the Republicans did take the other House in Virginia.

This got through that, next year, Republicans might be running in a lot of places on a 15-week ban as, "Hey, look, you still get abortion rights in the first trimester, plus a few weeks, so this is the reasonable thing." Now, of course, abortion rights advocates would hate that and they don't really see it as a compromise, but it seems like this was a potentially major political thrust by the Republicans and it's dead in the water.

Shefali Luthra: I think that's absolutely right. This was the first effort to try to aggressively, actively promote an abortion rights restriction campaign by Republicans and it didn't work. This is important and interesting for a few reasons. The first is that it showed us not only that voters are going to come out in opposition of ballot measures that would restrict abortion rights, but they have also made the connection that Republicans are more likely to restrict abortion rights and have voted accordingly.

That is huge. That wasn't the case necessarily before the Dobbs decision. I think what it also shows us is that, to your point, this was framed as the compromise position. There can be discussion over whether that is, in fact, a moderate approach because, as we know, there's no medical reason for a 15-week ban, but we do know that, largely, those poll better. Yet, all the same, voters did not come out in favor of lawmakers who would support a 15-week ban.

That really speaks to how little they trusted the GOP when it comes to abortion and that fits into all the polling. They think Democrats have a better handle on the issue. They do not believe that Republicans would stay at 15 weeks even if that is what they campaigned on. To their credit, there is some evidence that Republicans often don't say at 15 weeks, right? We can look at Florida where, last year, a 15-week ban was passed and took effect. Then this year, Republicans came back and passed a six-week prohibition.

Brian Lehrer: Elizabeth in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Hello. [clears throat] Thank you for taking my call. Yes, of course, I'm very much in favor-- [clears throat] I'm sorry. [coughs]

Brian Lehrer: That's all right. You need a minute? Elizabeth, why don't you clear your throat? Maybe have a swallow of water. I will come back to you. We're not going to cut you off, but I'm going to come back to you and give you a second. Let me start down our other lane here with you, Shefali, this interesting news that research from the Guttmacher Institute, which studies abortion in various ways and is affiliated with Planned Parenthood, show that legal abortions increased in the United States in the first six months of 2023 compared to before Dobbs was decided and upended access to abortion nationwide. Of course, all these states put in all these bans. How could that be?

Shefali Luthra: This is a really interesting question. To build on that, Guttmacher is not the only organization that found this slight increase in abortions. We also got a similar analysis from the Society for Family Planning, but I think a few important factors have to be considered in here. One is that people are really undergoing tremendous lengths to travel out of state for care.

We are seeing countless Texans going to New Mexico, going to Florida, going to Kansas to access abortion. We are also seeing that that is a really expensive and not in prohibitive journey. Wait times at clinics and destination states have grown longer. People's abortions are happening later. They are more expensive. We also know that before Dobbs, the number of abortions had actually been going up in America.

It's really hard for us to come out of this and say, "Would they have gone up even more if not for these abortion bans?" I think one of the most important things for us to keep in mind is that this is still early days in a lot of ways. Those data sets don't take into account the implications of North Carolina's 12-week ban, which took effect this summer and added other new restrictions as well that made a critical destination state much harder to leverage as a point for care.

They don't take into effect what happens if Florida's six-week ban does take effect and that's still being litigated in the courts, but that would have a significant impact as well because Florida is one of the major access points for abortion in the South. I think we also need to keep in mind that there are other data sets that are starting to show implications for abortion bans that aren't surprising but are also, from a health standpoint, quite concerning.

We've seen the rate of births in Texas go up since that six-week ban took effect even before Roe was overturned. We've also seen infant mortality increase and that a lot of researchers do link to abortion bans because people cannot terminate pregnancies that have medical complications. That's a real concern that we will see continue to play out in the coming years.

Brian Lehrer: Now, I think Elizabeth in Brooklyn is ready to go. Elizabeth, you still there?

Elizabeth: Yes, I'm still here. Thank you. What I wanted to say, although I was happy about the referendum in Ohio passing and, of course, I'm very much in favor of abortion being legal, what worries me is that if many states do make it a constitutional right that abortion is absolutely legal, it'll stop being an issue in elections. If people feel confident that abortions have been made legal in their state, that may no longer influence them when they go to vote.

Brian Lehrer: Elizabeth, thank you very much. That's a political calculation that, I guess, the Democratic Party has to make, right, Shefali?

Shefali Luthra: I think there are interesting questions in there. One thing I was watching for in Virginia last night was, would the fact that voters haven't necessarily had to perceive an existential threat to abortion rights, abortion is illegal up to viability there, make them less likely to turn out on the issue? So far, that didn't happen. I think to Elizabeth's point though, another factor to consider is, every year, we get further and further out from the Dobbs decision. Potentially, the news cycle moves on. How does this stay an important issue for voters? How does it maintain salience? Because the implications of bans aren't going away.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, here's a text message from a listener on that Virginia proposal. Listener says, "15 weeks is before most fetal abnormalities are discovered." Some before that, it depends on the test, right? Some can be detected before. Some, I think it does take after 15 weeks, but it's a very relevant thing to point out if 15 weeks was going to be the cutoff.

Shefali Luthra: It absolutely is. Beyond fetal abnormalities, we also know that other medical complications in pregnancy can occur after 15 weeks that require termination. The very famous one is having someone's water break before the fetus is viable, which, if not treated by termination, can be life-threatening but can be considered outlawed if you have a 15-week ban in effect. You can talk about medical exceptions, but what we have heard over and over again from physicians on the ground is that medical exceptions are just incredibly hard to navigate in real-time, especially because if a court decides that you're wrong, the risk is jail time.

Brian Lehrer: To what you were just describing about how a woman risks imprisonment if she has an abortion on the wrong side of a deadline line, depending on the state. Earlier this month, an Idaho woman and her son were charged with kidnapping after prosecutors say they took the son's minor girlfriend out of state to get an abortion. Police used the girl's cell phone data to confirm that the trio traveled to Oregon in May to obtain the abortion. Despite the string of abortion rights victories in yesterday's election, this is still going to be the reality for many people across the country, right?

Shefali Luthra: I would be very cautious about extrapolating too much from the Idaho case in particular, especially because the charges levied weren't actually through any abortion restrictions but through kidnapping laws that that exist in. It seems like there are some specific details in that case that make it very particular. I think, to your point, it is very clear that Republicans and Republicans who oppose abortion are quite concerned about people traveling out of state to access care.

I have heard from many that their concern moving forward is twofold. They want to pass more abortion restrictions and they also want to find more ways to target the people who help people travel out of state for abortions that they seek and finding a way to cut off that support system, especially because many of them do not feel ready, at least at this point, to go after pregnant people themselves.

Brian Lehrer: Does the data that shows a rise in the number of abortions nationally since Dobbs indicate not just crossing of state lines like that to legal states but also a rise in abortions among those living in legal states?

Shefali Luthra: I think it's not really easy for us to tease out because we don't have a ton of data about where people live when they get those abortions. It wouldn't be surprising, but I think we're in too early days to fully understand what exactly that means other than the very clear, obvious travel patterns.

Brian Lehrer: Could be that even in legal states, people weren't entirely aware of all their rights or focused on something as focused as they are since Dobbs. It became such a resurgent issue on the pro-abortion rights side that they even have that choice or that choice is moral for them to make. It's just a theory.

Shefali Luthra: One thing that is interesting is that in some states that haven't emerged as these essential destinations for abortion, at least, in the first year post-Dobbs, states like California or New York, we have still seen an investment in making abortion more accessible. It's a possibility for sure that what the implications were there were to make access easier for people living in those states as opposed to expanding access to people who live in states with abortion bans.

Brian Lehrer: On the Ohio referendum that put abortion rights into the state constitution yesterday, Candace in Manhattan but originally from Ohio, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Candace: Hi. How are you doing?

Brian Lehrer: Good, thank you.

Candace: Good. Me too. Me too. I'm pro-choice. It's a good day. I would like to point out that from my perspective, you might not want to make too much linking this outcome, a pro-choice outcome, to any larger questions of who is going to take the election upcoming. This is a very specific issue, pro-choice, and it was linked also with the marijuana referendum. That's really all that was on the ballot. This is a turnout question. The takeaway here, I think, is turn out your people.

If you go down all of the 88 counties, the list in Ohio, and you look at urban versus rural, well, the urban counties went pro-choice, the rural, some of the rural ones did too. Turnout because you can see that it was the college kids in the rural areas that turned out. In other words, I really think the takeaway here is turn out your people and don't put too much stock in the idea that this necessarily links to larger questions.

Brian Lehrer: Candace, thank you. Although I think we did see, Shefali, that in 2022 in the congressional elections, abortion rights emerged as a major reason why there wasn't as much of a red wave as a lot of people predicted, but it's in play as to whether it will be a defining issue next year. The New York Times/Siena College Poll that's getting so much attention this week found that one of the reasons Trump is leading against a hypothetical matchup against Biden in a lot of swing states is that people may be for abortion rights, but it's not what they think is up in the election is at stake as opposed to economic issues where they may favor Trump. That's a big political question going forward for next year, is for the Democrats to make it salient.

Shefali Luthra: I think that's a really important point. We saw not one but two pretty bad polls for Joe Biden in the past few days, right? There was The New York Times one and also a CNN poll that also showed Trump ahead of him. Obviously, we know from the data that voters trust Democrats more on abortion. We do know that in the immediate post-Dobbs fervor, they put abortion as a higher-priority issue than they had in years past. We know that they did that in Virginia last night. Whether that happens again in a year and whether that is enough to overcome Joe Biden's low approval ratings is, I think, a question we will be monitoring and interrogating over the coming year.

Brian Lehrer: One more thing before you go, Shefali, and it's an entirely different news story, but I wonder if you think it's related. Did you see the story about new data from the Centers for Disease Control showing more than 3,700 cases of congenital syphilis were reported in newborns last year? That's 11 times the number recorded a decade ago and the highest since the 1960s.

According to the data, among those who tested positive for syphilis, 88% received inadequate, undocumented, or no treatment, the mothers. Does this tie into the post-Dobbs world in any way? Have we seen a decline in clinics that provide abortions and free or affordable reproductive care in general or health care like Planned Parenthood that has had an impact?

Shefali Luthra: I think this is one of those areas where it's too early for us to say what the Dobbs impact is, but this is a trend that has been in the making for quite some time. The numbers are very staggering. What they show is that the reproductive healthcare framework, especially for low-income Americans, is very, very slipshod. It has been underfunded for a long time.

It has been a target of political attacks. If and as that continues in the post-Dobbs landscape, we can continue to watch and see if these numbers continue to get worse because of the lack of funding for clinics that provide abortion but also provide other forms of reproductive health care such as treatment, testing, and prevention for sexually transmitted infections.

Brian Lehrer: Shefali Luthra, healthcare reporter at The 19th, a non-profit newsroom covering gender inequity. We always appreciate when you come on, Shefali. Thank you so much.

Shefali Luthra: Thank you for having me.

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