Planned Parenthood to spend record $50M ahead of midterm elections

Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion advocacy group, is launching a record $50 million investment into the midterm elections in November, the organization announced Wednesday.

The effort is aimed at states that are poised to either ban or expand access to sexual and reproductive health care, and comes just a few months after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade case that granted a constitutional right to abortion.

Planned Parenthood’s advocacy and political organizations will initially invest in nine target states to remind voters that abortion is at stake: Georgia, Nevada, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Michigan and Wisconsin. 

“The Supreme Court and anti-abortion rights politicians have stripped people of their constitutional right to abortion and the ability to make personal health care decisions,” said Jenny Lawson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes. 

“Should these out-of-touch politicians gain or stay in power, they will continue doing everything they can to ban all abortion, throw health care providers and pregnant people in jail, and endanger the health and lives of pregnant people across the country. This November, voters are going to take control by electing reproductive health care champions, up and down the ballot, who trust us to make our own decisions about our bodies, our lives, and our futures,” Lawson said. 

Planned Parenthood said it intends to contact 6 million voters across all target states through door knocking, phone calls, digital advertising, mailers and radio ads.

It also is launching a website, takecontrol2022.com.

The Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe in late June ended a nearly half-century legal precedent in which abortion was a federally protected right up to around 24 weeks.

In its place, a complex patchwork of state laws has begun to emerge, with conservatives states, particularly in the South and Midwest, moving swiftly to impose new abortion restrictions and even near-total bans.

Democrats have historically struggled to put abortion front and center in election campaigns, but advocates and strategists think this year will be different. Planned Parenthood said it plans to leverage the influx of support it has received as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision.

According to a recent USA Today poll, abortion is the second highest issue on voters’ minds when asked to name the most important issue affecting their vote for Congress in November. 

Earlier this month, nearly 60 percent of voters in Kansas rejected a state constitutional amendment that would have given the legislature more power to regulate access to abortion.