Conservatives fear new restrictions on abortion rights will undermine Republican chances of retaking congressional majorities, so wealthy donors have been pushing misleadingly "neutral" ads trying to downplay the impact of the U.S Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
A conservative nonprofit called Independent Women's Voice has paid for Facebook ads, called "It's Not 1973 Anymore," showing a young woman discussing the loss of abortion rights as "such a big deal" with her grandmother, who agrees but says that crime, inflation and uncaring schools are "a bigger deal," and the Washington Post obtained internal memos showing the group's concern about the decision's impact on the midterm elections.
“As we predicted last May, the left has used the Dobbs decision to manufacture through misinformation a War on Women 2.0-playbook, updated from 2012, to drive women away from common-sense conservative positions and no one is effectively countering it,” states the September proposal called “A WINNING STRATEGY.”
The group is led by Vicks VapoRub heiress Heather Higgins, who once boasted that the nonprofit organization was seen as neutral despite being conservative, but she told the Post in a statement that it would engage in "no electioneering" for any particular GOP candidate.
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“Our starting premise is that intelligent public policy requires honest and accurate discussion about underlying facts," Higgins told the paper. “Obviously, Dobbs changed abortion law, but not nearly as dramatically and drastically as some of the hype encourages women to believe.”
However, another fall proposal for donors promised the group would “execute targeted campaigns … to drive moderate or slightly left-leaning audiences toward conservative policies and ideas.”
A third proposal, called "campaign strategy," told donors that Independent Women’s Voice was the only right-leaning group focused on voters outside the GOP base and was “perfectly positioned in the upcoming midterm elections … to move these groups towards conservative policies, and as a corollary, conservative candidates.”
