Abortion rights is, once again, shaping up to be a defining issue in the race for California’s 45th congressional district — and could shed light on how the matter could play an outsized role in 2024.
The kerfuffle over how Rep. Michelle Steel has reaffirmed her support for anti-abortion legislation — and just who is qualified to speak about it — began when she added her name as a co-sponsor last week to legislation that’s nearly a year old.
Supporters say the resolution, introduced in January 2023, simply defines life as beginning at conception and ensures the unborn is protected under the 14th Amendment; others say it equates to a nationwide abortion ban.
“Rep. Steel’s position remains clear: She is pro-life with the exceptions of rape, incest and the health and life of the mother and does not support a national ban on abortion,” said Claire Nance, a spokesperson for Steel.
Nance disputed a report from the New York Times that said Steel only added her name on Jan. 12 to the 2023 legislation after an opponent criticized her. Steel’s office said she did not sign onto the resolution because of the New York Times and said the bill was already on her radar.
Dubbed the “Life at Conception Act,” the bill “declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being” and defines that as “including the moment of fertilization, cloning or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.” Steel, a Seal Beach Republican, co-sponsored similar legislation in 2021.
Rep. Alex Mooney, the West Virginia Republican who introduced the bill, says it would ensure “the preborn” are protected under the 14th Amendment, which guarantees the right to due process and equal protection. “As a result,” Mooney said in a statement when he introduced the bill last year, “preborn babies would be entitled to legal protection under the Constitution as enforced by the states.”
While the resolution’s text doesn’t specifically include exceptions for rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at stake — which Steel has said she does support — it does note that women should not be prosecuted for the death of an unborn child.
Most of the bill’s 115 cosponsors came in January 2023 — albeit, some signed on as late as December. Rep. Brett Guthrie of Kentucky added his name to the bill on Jan. 5.
Supporters of the resolution say it would leave new laws related to abortion up to the states. The U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 stripped away constitutional protections for abortions, effectively allowing states to enact bans.
The 2024 of it all
Up for re-election this year, Steel is one of several Republicans who represents a district that went for President Joe Biden in 2020. Some of those Republicans, as the New York Times reported, have stayed away from the anti-abortion resolution, including Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Palmdale, and David Valadao, R-Bakersfield.
Polling continues to show that most Americans believe abortion should be legal, at least to some degree.
But when it comes to the 45th congressional district, Steel can get a glimpse of how her constituents may feel about abortion rights by turning to the 2022 election when Proposition 1 was on the ballot. The constitutional amendment enshrined protections for abortion rights in California’s constitution and prohibits the state from denying or interfering with a person’s reproductive health care, including when it comes to their choice regarding abortion and contraceptives.
Voters in CA-45 solidly backed the abortion rights measure, with 55.1% voting for it.
Steel’s anti-abortion stance isn’t new. But how it plays in 2024, experts say, will come down to how successfully she messages it.
“The issue (of abortion) is going to hurt her like it’s going to hurt most Republican candidates. The question for her is whether she can make immigration a bigger part of voters’ decisions,” said Dan Schnur, a former campaign consultant who teaches about political messaging at UC Berkeley and USC. “She’s playing defense on abortion, the same way Democrats are trying to protect themselves on immigration.”
“The pro-abortion side puts it as an abortion ban without exceptions and paints it as this cruel, heartless, out-of-touch move,” said Mary Rose Short, a director of the anti-abortion group California Right to Life. “But if Congresswoman Steel can present the logic of it — all human beings should be protected under the constitution, that it should be universal — that would be a winning message.”
“The question is: Can she get that message out there, and can it overcome the message of the other side?” she said.
Where do the CA-45 Democrats stand on abortion?
Already, Steel’s Democratic opponents have used her alignment with the resolution in their campaigning.
Attorney Derek Tran posted a link to a fundraising site on X (formerly called Twitter), asking his followers to “stand up to MAGA extremism.” On the same site, attorney Cheyenne Hunt said Steel is “flip-flopping to hide the truth: She’s just too extreme for” the district.
Nance, the spokesperson for Steel, said the Democratic opponents in the CA-45 race “support late-term abortion up until birth.”
When asked Tuesday, Hunt said she doesn’t believe in “extreme positions,” like partial-birth or at-birth abortions. Instead, she said, she supports following what is law in California. (California dictates that anyone has a legal right to an abortion until a doctor determines the fetus is viable, meaning it could live outside the uterus without extreme measures.)
Tran said he supports the codification of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case that protected the right to an abortion.
“I’m infinity percent pro-choice. I am someone who is a survivor of rape and had a miscarriage last year … and is 14 days postpartum,” said Garden Grove Councilmember Kim Nguyen-Penaloza. The decision of when to have an abortion procedure, she said, should be up to the pregnant person and whomever they choose to include in that decision-making process.
