Battle over abortion threatens to deepen America's divide

Already in the days since the leak of a draft ruling reversing Roe, governors and state legislators have rushed to define the values of their separate Americas. While Gov. Gavin Newsom of California vowed to amend his state’s constitution to protect abortion rights, Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma signed new legislation prohibiting abortion after six weeks. Calls for state legislatures to address the issue in special sessions proliferated on both sides of the divide.

The map showing both the states ready to ban abortions if the Supreme Court lets them and the states building protections for the procedure into their own laws looks strikingly familiar in this season of schism. It would fit neatly atop maps showing state policies on the pandemic or state crackdowns on critical race theory or, for that matter, the Electoral College map of recent presidential elections. The populous Northeast, mid-Atlantic seaboard and West Coast form one like-minded bloc, while the South and most of the Mountain West form another, with the Midwest split between them.

“It’s two different worlds — hostile, suspicious of each other and assuming bad intent,” said Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican strategist and the co-director of the Dornsife Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California, which has studied political polarization. “It’s become totally tribal. There are no opponents anymore. Everyone is an enemy.”