GOP congresswoman warns her party will ‘lose huge’ for backing abortion bans

A Republican congresswoman is warning her party to back away from attempts to restrict abortion access and rights across the country, calling it a lost issue.

Nancy Mace from South Carolina made the comments on ABCs This weekand warned that the GOP would “lose hugely” in 2024 if it didn’t reverse course.

Her comments came two days after the US Supreme Court upheld access to the widely used abortion drug mifepristone amid ongoing legal challenges to its state approval.

It also comes as a handful of anti-abortion groups have rallied behind a bill in the US Senate introduced by her state Senator Lindsey Graham that would ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The party is currently at a crossroads on the abortion issue, with opinions divided on whether to pursue bans at the state level, through Congress, or not at all. The Graham bill, unveiled last year ahead of the 2022 election, was widely panned by Republicans, including Mr Graham’s caucus leader, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Mr Graham’s bill is far from the only GOP-led attempt to restrict abortion following last year’s Supreme Court decision to abolish it Deer vs Wade. A number of states, including Florida, have recently enacted or are implementing bans, while others reinstated bans that were lifted with the fall of Roe.

But whether it’s a winning strategy for Republicans is another question entirely. In swing states where local conditions have made abortion rights the focus of Democratic campaigns, such as Michigan, where a 1931 law banning abortion was reinstated, Republicans fared poorly, in many cases losing close races to opponents who vowed to protect the practice as legal.

As a result, the GOP narrowly recaptured the House of Representatives in 2022 and failed to make any gains in the Senate, losing a seat to its rivals.

Ms Mace often pleads and narrates for her party’s moderate stance on various social issues The Independent in January that she watched her own district move from “mildly pro-choice” to “vehemently pro-choice” in the wake of that roe Verdict.

“We will not win hearts and minds by being an asshole to women. It’s not going to work that way,” she said at the time.