Kansas abortion vote vindicates leaving issue to voters, we should have for decades

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times Columnist David Brooks said the abortion vote in Kansas was “a vindication of the voters,” that if people had “real choices, as opposed to extreme positions in state legislatures, most states, the vast majority of states” will end. down the middle on abortion and said he wished the abortion issue had been left up to voters “for the last several decades.”

Brooks said:[T]oh me, it’s a vindication of the voters, that we could — one of the problems Roe v. Wade is we got [the issue out of the hands of] the voters. But you look at what just happened in Kansas, you think, well, reasonable enough. And if we can sort that out to give people real choices, as opposed to extreme state legislatures, most states, the vast majority of states, will come out where the polls show most Americans are, which is this middle ground, where abortion is not prohibited, not before nine months, but somewhere in the middle. And so, for me, it is a vindication of democracy. And I — frankly, I wish we’d done this in the past few decades.”