As the women trickled into the community clubhouse late last monthjilievo online gaming, each grabbed a red flyer printed with a message: “Pregnancy is personal, not political.”
That was the resounding theme at the Bradenton mixer hosted by a group of conservative women who plan to vote yes on a ballot question that could undo Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
Over snacks and small glasses of wine, the hosts informed other mostly conservative women about the November ballot question and let them know that they weren’t alone. The mixer’s aim was to dispel misinformation and to get attendees to speak in favor of Amendment 4 — despite their own party’s opposition.
While Democrats have taken up abortion rights as a key issue for 2024 elections across the country, polling shows the issue doesn’t fall strictly along partisan lines. Some Republican women are working to create room for conservative people who oppose abortion bans.
Alyssa Nohren, a Republican, first heard about Conservative Women for Freedom after reading about it in a local news report.
“You should have the option to do with your body what you see fit,” said Nohren, who co-hosted last month’s event. “(Political parties) have just gone so far right and so far left. I’m just moderate. And unfortunately, there’s just not a lot of people for us.”
If Amendment 4 passes in November, the state Constitution would say that no law could “prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict” abortion before viability.
Support from conservative and independent voters is essential for the amendment to meet the 60% voter support to pass. Florida’s electorate has leaned increasingly red in recent years. Democrats make up about 32% of active registered voters; Republicans make up about 39%.
“This is math,” said Anna Hochkammer, executive director of Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition, a political committee focused on raising support for Amendment 4 from conservative and independent voters. “We need to keep about two out of three independent voters with us, and two out of five Republicans.”
Republicans respond well to right-to-privacy arguments about issues like vaccines, and abortion is no different, Hochkammer said.
A recent survey conducted by KFF, a leading health policy organization, found that two-thirds of Florida women of reproductive age support a right to abortion. Half of those surveyed identified as Republicans.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who opposes the amendment and who signed Florida’s six-week abortion ban, said last month that if only Floridians who are anti-abortion oppose the amendment, it may well pass. He said, though, that if every Republican votes against it, it would fail.
The Bradenton mixer drew about 30 attendees, including many older women. A local obstetrician and gynecologist took questions about things like ectopic pregnancies and why menstrual cycles may be irregular for some women.
Many of the attendees said they felt stuck in the middle of increasingly polarized politics.
Debbie Scaccianoce, a Republican Bradenton Beach commissioner who attended, said she knows a woman who last year traveled to three different states before she could get an abortion, finding access in Illinois after trying Georgia and South Carolina.
“It’s her body, it should be her choice, and taking it away is unfathomable,” Scaccianoce said.
Organizers with Hochkammer’s group have held roughly 20 mixers like the one in Bradenton, including in Orlando, Coral Gables and Tampa.
David Karol, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, said the two-party system is limiting and voters often choose a political party that doesn’t completely align with their beliefs.
Before Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, Karol said conservative voters who disagreed with the GOP stance on abortion may have been able to assure themselves that no real action could limit abortion access. Now, conversations are changing.
Carol Whitmore, a former Republican Manatee County commissioner and one of the hosts of last Tuesday’s mixer, said she and other Republicans “aren’t going to give up our party because of one issue.” But she said she knows many Republican women support the amendment even if they won’t say so publicly.
Whitmore said when she gave petitions to conservative friends last year to get the amendment on the ballot, only two refused to sign.
In 2021, when Whitmore was on the county commission, she publicly told her own story about getting an abortion after getting tired of hearing that Republicans couldn’t be anything but opposed to the procedure.
At the time, one of Whitmore’s fellow Manatee County commissioners was hoping to pass a local abortion ban.
So, during a commission meeting, Whitmore talked about how she’d gotten pregnant in 1973 after a nonconsensual sexual encounter with a man she never saw again. She told her fellow commissioners and those in the audience that she’d borrowed $150 and had an abortion.
Whitmore said she knew she’d get backlash for speaking in support of abortion access. She lost her commission seat in 2022 to a Republican primary challenger. But Whitmore has only become more outspoken.
“It’s a personal cause for me,” Whitmore said. “And it’s a personal cause for a lot of people.”
Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group behind Amendment 4, has intentionally kept its campaign nonpartisan. The organization hasn’t worked with any Democratic candidates and isn’t targeting voters of any particular political persuasion.
“This nonpartisan approach has been met with resounding support and encouragement,” the group’s communications director, Natasha Sutherland, said in a statement. “We know that the majority of Floridians support abortion access free from government interference and are eager to have their voices heard at the ballot box this November.”
DeSantis and other opponents hope to paint the amendment as too extreme even for people who support abortion access. He is hoping to tie it to figures that conservatives may see as too far-left, like Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
But the conservative women supporting the amendment say that the issue isn’t about party politics — it’s about government overreach.
Jaymie Carter, a Manatee real estate agent, said she’s always been a Republican because she agrees with ideas like smaller government and fiscal conservatism.
But she said she always believed it should be a woman’s decision on what to do with her body.
“It shouldn’t be up to Gov. DeSantis or any politician to tell us what’s right and what’s wrong,” said Carter, another co-host of the Bradenton mixer.
Hochkammer said the ballot’s abortion question shouldn’t make Florida Republicans feel like they are splitting with their party on the issue because the Legislature’s six-week restriction goes beyond where most conservatives are comfortable.
“Trump doesn’t support a total abortion ban,” Hochkammer said. (After making ambiguous statements about how he felt about Florida’s amendment, Trump last week said he would vote no on it, but indicated he still thought Florida’s six-week ban was too short.)
Hochkammer added: “We don’t need to trash a party to get voters on this side.”
This story was originally published September 4, 2024, 5:30 AM.
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