Some Republicans embrace ‘pro-choice’ label, infuriating Democrats

A few Republicans running for competitive or Democratic-leaning congressional seats are adopting and reviving a label that was nearly extinct in their party: pro-choice.

The terminology marks some of the biggest changes in how the Republican Party is approaching abortion and reproductive issues that have challenged the party electorally since the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion in 2022.

It is also frustrating Democrats and reproductive rights advocates, who say Republicans are trying to redefine the term without fully supporting abortion rights.

Matt Gunderson, the GOP challenger to Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), released a campaign ad last month in which he says directly to the camera, “On women’s right to choose, I am pro-choice. I believe abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.”

The Southern California district Gunderson seeks to flip is rated as “likely Democrat” in a Decision Desk HQ/The Hill election forecast. In an interview with The Hill, Gunderson said “this is not a politically expedient position I’ve taken” and that he has long opposed “government dictating health care for any woman.”

But that does not necessarily extend to supporting federal protections for abortion.

“I oppose late-term abortion. I’ve made it very clear that I will not vote for a federal abortion ban, and I’ve said I will not vote to codify Roe v. Wade,” Gunderson said. “The Supreme Court has sent this to the states. It’s a states’ rights issue.”

Levin told The Hill that his opponent is “trying to deceive people” by labeling himself “pro-choice.”

“I don’t really think you can be pro-choice if you believe states should have the right to ban all abortions. Those two things are just not consistent,” Levin said.

He also pointed to Gunderson opposing California’s Proposition 1 in 2022, a measure to explicitly grant the right to abortion in the state constitution. Gunderson said the measure “opened up Pandora’s box to late-term abortion.”

“If they believe that the only way you can be pro-choice is if you support abortion with no limits and no restrictions, I think that’s an extreme position that’s out of line with most voters, let alone most pro-choice voters,” Gunderson said of criticism from Democrats.

Gunderson is not the only Republican using the pro-choice label but declining to support federal protections for the procedure.

“I am pro-choice. I believe [former President Trump] is functionally pro-choice,” Rep. John Duarte (R-Calif.), who represents one of the most competitive districts in the country, told CNN in September. “He wants the state to make abortion law themselves. He doesn’t want to federalize abortion law, and neither do I.”

Not all Republicans have a states’ rights interpretation of “pro-choice.”

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, the Republican nominee for Senate in the state, called himself “pro-choice” in an interview with The New York Times shortly after he won the primary. And Hogan, unlike other Republicans sporting the label, said he would vote to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law. A page on Hogan’s website is dedicated to his record on reproductive rights, touting ratings from abortion-rights groups and noting he responded in the affirmative when asked in 2019 whether Roe was rightly decided.

But Hogan’s Democratic opponent, Angela Alsobrooks, has pointed to his previous veto of a bill in 2022 that would have expanded abortion access by ending a restriction to only allow physicians to provide abortions. And Democrats say his support for codifying Roe would not matter if Republicans control the Senate.

“There will never be a vote as to whether or not we should codify Roe in federal law if the Republicans are in the majority,” Alsobrooks told The Associated Press last month.

Beyond the battles between candidates over abortion policy, the uptick in Republicans using the phrase pro-choice at all shows how the party is recalibrating how to talk about abortion.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (Ohio) candidly articulated that in the presidential debate, saying Republicans have “got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue where they frankly just don’t trust us.”

It may also signal a shift in what kind of positions on abortion are acceptable among Republicans, who have largely courted the “pro-life” vote. As anti-abortion activists notched a number of incremental wins — such as the House voting multiple times in previous years to approve a 20-week abortion ban — the number of Republicans embracing the pro-choice label or support dwindled. 

Now, Republican leaders, including Vance and former President Trump, say the issue should be left to the states.

Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) are the most notable GOP abortion-rights supporters in Congress, even as they declined to support Democratic abortion-rights legislation they said went too far — and introduced an alternative abortion-rights bill.

Jack Pandol, National Republican Congressional Committee communications director, said in a statement that “the Republican Party has always been a big tent with room for a variety of views.”

“It’s Democrats who have systematically pushed out any member who does not share their extreme, dogmatic view permitting late-term abortions paid for by taxpayers,” Pandol said.

But Democrats aren’t giving the Republicans on the edge of that big tent any credit.

“House Republicans know their extreme anti-choice records are their biggest vulnerability, so they’re saying anything in a desperate attempt to deceive voters. Unfortunately for them, if these anti-abortion extremists won’t tell the truth about their dangerous agenda to restrict reproductive freedom, then we can do it for them,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Viet Shelton said in a statement.

Another Republican feeling the heat from Democrats for using “pro-choice” terminology is Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (N.J.), whose district rating is leans Republican.

Kean called himself pro-choice in a 2022 debate and has reiterated that position, with his campaign manager recently telling Politico that Kean “is pro-choice with over twenty years of votes supporting IVF and women’s rights.”

Sue Altman, Kean’s Democratic opponent, tore into him for using the term despite voting in the state Legislature against a measure to codify a constitutional right to abortion.

“Nobody is buying his BS pro-choice label,” Altman told The Hill in a statement.

“This brazen, desperate attempt to redefine themselves as ‘pro-choice’ is their attempt to escape accountability for the disastrous outcomes of their extreme positions on reproductive rights,” Altman said of the Republicans. “It would be laughable if women across the country were not suffering and, in some cases dying, because of these extreme Republican abortion bans.”