The issue of abortion is now centre-stage in the US presidential election. Campaigners must seize the opportunity
The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg raises the immediate question of whether or not President Trump will be able to successfully install a new supreme court justice before the election, or be thwarted. There are electoral benefits to him in either case: he gets his replacement through – among the names touted are Amy Coney Barrett and Barbara Lagoa, both candidates representing a further lurch to the right – or his failure to do so motivates his base.
Either way, it makes the 2020 election, among many other things, into a referendum on abortion. Trump’s explicit promise in 2016 was that any supreme court judge he nominated would “automatically” overturn Roe v Wade. Four years ago, that statement was a box-ticking exercise; to oppose abortion as a Republican candidate is a minimum entry requirement, not a campaign slogan.
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