Brooks: Kansas Abortion Vote Vindicates Leaving Issue to Voters, We Should Have Been Doing That for Decades

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks said that the abortion vote in Kansas is “a vindication of the voters,” that if people have “actual choices, as opposed to extremes in state legislatures, most of the states, the vast majority of the states,” will end up in the middle on abortion and said he wishes the issue of abortion had been left to voters “for the last few decades.”

Brooks said, “[T]o me, it’s a vindication of the voters, that we could — one of the problems with Roe v. Wade is we took [the issue out of the hands of] the voters. But you look at what just happened in Kansas, you think, well, pretty sensible. And if we can settle this to give people actual choices, as opposed to extremes in state legislatures, most of the states, the vast majority of the states, are going to come out at the place where the polls suggest most Americans are, which is this middle ground, where it’s not banning abortion, not until nine months, but somewhere in the middle there. And so, to me, it’s a vindication of democracy. And I — frankly, I wish we’d been doing this for the last few decades.”

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