Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been doing quite the rhetorical dance on abortion.
Last week, following the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, McConnell said that it was "possible" Republicans would seek to enact a national ban on abortion.
That hardly came as a shock, given that prohibiting abortion has been a top GOP priority for decades and that a number of prominent Republicans have already said they think a nationwide prohibition should be on the table.
But on Tuesday, McConnell "clarified" his comments. He told reporters that he was merely speaking about what was technically possible ― and, by implication, not about what he actually envisioned Republicans attempting if they gained control of Congress and the presidency.
That, too, was unsurprising. Banning abortion would be extremely unpopular ― polling consistently shows that most Americans think it should be legal in at least some circumstances ― and a national ban would almost certainly provoke a backlash.
That unpopularity is one reason plenty of pundits and outside observers keep saying a nationwide ban is unlikely: In American politics, parties rarely try to pursue changes that clear, large majorities oppose. And when they do, they usually fail and go on to suffer consequences.
Just ask the Republicans who attempted to privatize Social Security during the George W. Bush administration, or the ones who tried repealing the Affordable Care Act while Donald Trump was in the White House.
Neither effort succeeded. Both times, the harsh public reaction carried all the way to the following midterms, when those same Republicans took a beating and lost control of Congress.
Still, a lot has changed since then, and it would be a mistake to dismiss the possibility of a national abortion ban. The same goes for other extreme ideas, like prohibitions on certain kinds of contraception or a rollback of same-sex marriage rights, that Republicans around the country are now endorsing openly.
I can think of several reasons to take these threats seriously. Here are three:
