'Significant support' for abortion rights: 'Ohio vote a bellwether for other contests' across US
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00:00 Next, Ohio has voted to keep abortion rights in the state.
00:04 The vote's been framed as key on this issue leading up to next year's presidential election
00:08 in the U.S.
00:09 And it was an important test after the Supreme Court scrapped the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling,
00:14 effectively banning abortion on a federal level.
00:16 With each state now free to decide, there are lobbies either side, eyeing 12 other states
00:22 where such similar votes are scheduled.
00:24 Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates had a meet-and-debate this Wednesday, again
00:29 snubbed by the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump, as the party's increasingly
00:35 hard-line position on abortion faces scrutiny after these disappointing state elections.
00:40 Disappointing from their angle, I suppose, not, of course, if you're for choice in that
00:45 matter.
00:46 Eric Lissan joins us, a former federal prosecutor and, I'm sure you know, our go-to person on
00:52 matters legal stateside.
00:53 And so much more.
00:54 Eric, always a pleasure to have you.
00:56 Tell us, how important is this Ohio vote?
00:59 Good evening, Mark.
01:02 It's always a pleasure to be here with you.
01:04 The Ohio vote is very important.
01:06 It's a bellwether and it was very specific to abortion.
01:11 So it showed at a minimum that support for abortion rights is significant, almost overwhelming,
01:19 even in a red state such as Ohio.
01:22 So it can be seen as a bellwether for other contests around the nation and as something
01:27 that boosts the lean, as poll prognosticators or election watchers would call, in a particular
01:36 area towards the blue color, the Democratic side of the spectrum.
01:42 So in terms of thinking about going forward to the presidential debate and the presidential
01:48 election, is this likely to become a very important issue, do you think?
01:52 Is this a real sign of what we can expect in the months to come?
01:57 Well, in terms of communication strategies, certainly anybody watching it would say, yes,
02:03 this is something that Democrats should emphasize and Republicans should de-emphasize.
02:09 The problem for Republicans is that a significant part of the coalition that they've cobbled
02:15 together to support Trump, which has taken over the party, doesn't want to let go of
02:21 this issue in any way.
02:24 And they're sort of cemented in that belief because of the efforts they had to put in
02:30 to get Supreme Court justices to take away the previously existing constitutional right
02:36 to privacy in health and reproductive decisions that they had fought for so hard for many,
02:47 many years, even decades.
02:49 So they're sort of entrenched in that position.
02:52 And it's one that outside of the really red areas in the South and a little bit in the
02:58 West of the United States is going to cost them at the polls.
03:02 But the battle lines seem to have been drawn, and it's going to be very difficult for them
03:05 to change that.
03:07 I did see that on social media, the very Trumpist Ohio Senator J.D. Vance broadcast that in
03:15 fact Republicans should abandon this.
03:18 It's clearly an electoral loser, but it's going to be difficult to see how this can
03:23 be implemented by Republicans now.
03:25 You have preempted my next question.
03:27 Will this become a possible Achilles heel for whoever becomes the Republican candidate,
03:33 be it Trump, be it somebody else?
03:37 It should be an Achilles heel outside of the core, almost evangelical extremists who do
03:44 back Trump and provide a lot of the energy and momentum for his campaign.
03:49 We saw also in Virginia, and this is very important, a flipping of both houses or a
03:56 flipping of one house of the legislature and a retention of the other house of the legislature
04:03 to Democrats, despite the fact that a Republican governor, a sort of a Trump-lite, Glenn Youngkin,
04:10 had been there and had said this would be a mandate on what he called a more moderate
04:15 position on abortion rights.
04:17 And even that was resoundingly rejected in Virginia by the voters and blew up in Youngkin's
04:24 face as he lost any support in the legislature because of that.
04:30 Even in Ohio, by the way, there was a 13 percent differential and the language was very confusing
04:37 to voters.
04:38 It almost made it, it concealed what the intention of the issue was, to make it sound as if voters
04:47 were voting on something other than an assessment of the right to abortion and privacy.
04:57 So it's going to be a problem for Republicans.
05:00 Can I just end with a question which is more on the legal situation and the availability
05:05 then of a termination should a woman choose to have that?
05:08 In France, of course, obviously with the separation of the state and church going back to 1905,
05:14 the idea that this would be an issue that some would vote on because of their religious
05:17 beliefs would not be part of the equation, one would imagine.
05:20 However, in the US it is a very different situation.
05:23 So given the situation, the overturning of Roe versus Wade, the vote in Ohio, maybe that
05:29 says something about Ohio, but in general, women in the US, if they want a termination,
05:33 Eric, where do they stand legally?
05:37 Well it depends very much now on the state that they're in and there's a wide contrast
05:43 between, and it's generally along political lines, there's a wide contrast between the
05:48 rights in certain states and in others in these extremist states, such as for example,
05:54 Texas being a very big one, but not the only one.
05:58 There's an attempt to actually criminalize abortion and even criminalize the attempt
06:03 to leave the states to go to another state.
06:06 The legality of that is very much in question.
06:09 In fact, it's probably illegal, but this is something that's going to have to be decided
06:14 through the courts, again, depending on which court and which judge gets the case.
06:19 We don't know what the determination will be.
06:21 We see even in terms of military readiness, an Alabama Senator, Tommy Tuberville, has
06:27 raised this to the point where he's blocking all military confirmations because he doesn't
06:32 want military women to be able to change states in order for reproductive or health care that
06:40 involve this.
06:42 So there are many legal issues and it does depend to a large extent on which judges get
06:48 it, which is also, they get the case, which is also a political issue ultimately because
06:54 Trump and others like him are saying they want, or they're even bragging about their
07:00 ability to push through judges that will enforce this sort of extremist revision of what the
07:06 abortion laws in the United States have been for at least 50 years.
07:11 Eric Lissam, as always, thank you for joining us.
07:13 So we appreciate your clarity.
07:15 Thank you very much indeed.
07:16 Eric Lissam, joining us from the US, legal analyst, as we hear obviously as well, political
07:21 expert too.