With abortion becoming a big liability for the GOP in the post-Roe era, one Republican in a tight House race in California is taking an original messaging approach in a new TV ad: borrowing terminology coined by Democrats and the abortion rights movement.
“A woman’s right to choose? I’m pro-choice. I believe abortion should be safe, legal and rare,” says Matt Gunderson, a Republican challenging Rep. Mike Levin, in a television ad released Wednesday. “I don’t want politicians dictating health care for my daughters.”
The phrase “safe, legal and rare” was coined by former President Bill Clinton in 1992. Democrats have since moved on from the slogan — and from the idea that abortion should be “rare” — and instead, the party’s message has focused on ensuring women have full autonomy over their pregnancies.
“[Gunderson is] just throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. I think the only thing that’s going to stick is that he’s trying to deceive people,” Levin told NOTUS. “It’s no longer the early ’90s.”
Levin’s opponent isn’t the first Republican to borrow words popularized by the abortion rights side.
Just last month, former President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that his administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” highlighting how he is looking to get voters who support abortion access on his side. (The use of “reproductive rights” is heavily opposed by anti-abortion advocates, who have been critical of Trump’s waffling on abortion.)
Similarly, Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake released a video in April where she said that she wants to ensure that “every woman who finds herself pregnant has more choices so that she can make that choice that I made.” Lake has supported the now-repealed near-total abortion ban in Arizona.
“I have four daughters who are young adult women, and I don’t want the government to get involved and dictate their health care,” Gunderson told NOTUS. “I would obviously encourage other Republicans to agree with me, but, you know, I can’t expect them to agree with me on every issue.”
He said voters shouldn’t focus on him regularly quoting Clinton.
Republican strategists have previously told NOTUS that Republicans must be “reasonable and empathetic” when speaking to voters.
While Gunderson says in the ad that he opposes politicians making abortion decisions for patients and his website states that he would reject federal abortion restrictions, he opposed a ballot initiative in California that successfully enshrined abortion rights into the state’s constitution in 2022. He told NOTUS that he would not support a federal bill to protect abortion access because he believes the issue should be up to the states.
In January, when he was asked at a local GOP event about what could be done to restrict abortion in all 50 states, he said, “That decision has been made for you unfortunately” in California, calling the 2022 ballot initiative “disgusting,” according to an audio recording obtained by NOTUS.
When asked specifically about these comments, Gunderson said he opposed the ballot measure because it “opened up the issue of abortion to the Pandora’s box of late-term abortion in California, and I’ve always supported the existing California abortion law.” (The state’s law specifically mentioned that people have the right to an abortion “prior to viability of the fetus,” but the California Constitution lacks that language.)
But even as Gunderson says he supports abortion, he takes a page from other Republicans and tries to pivot from the conversation around the procedure. (In the ad, the candidate says that “there’s more that unites us” besides abortion beliefs.)
“I think if it comes up in conversation, you know, people are very thankful that we can put that issue aside,” Gunderson said, adding that abortion isn’t the main concern in the district. “They’re just happy to see that issue kind of set aside so we can have a serious conversation about solving California’s problems and our country’s problems.”
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Oriana González is a reporter at NOTUS.