Truly Conservative Women Like Me Are Increasingly Fed Up With Today's GOP | Opinion

In the two weeks since the State of the Union, conversations I've had with fellow conservative women have been filled with criticism—but not for President Biden. Instead, they've revolved around the disturbing response delivered by Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.), and what it says about the state of the Republican Party.

The words "creepy" and "Handmaid's Tale" come up often. The message is clear: The GOP is looking to put a "pretty face" on a sexist, backward ideology. And I say this as someone who is running for office in Texas as a Republican.

For many of us, this was the final sign that the GOP has run off the rails. Our only choices at this point are to fight to steer it back onto the tracks, or jump off entirely before it crashes.

These conversations I've had are echoing across the country. While Biden's fiery speech damaged the GOP's efforts to present him as "Sleepy Joe," Britt's rebuttal was epically awful.

As Vanity Fair noted, Republicans described Britt's speech as "one of our biggest disasters ever," "the stuff of nightmares," "parody-level terrible," and "comical, like SNL quality." (And indeed, Saturday Night Live followed up with a hilarious impression by Scarlett Johansson.)

But selecting Britt and approving this speech was not simply a mistake. It was the inevitable consequence of the way the GOP has been changing. The party is desperately trying to avoid issues crucial to women, while instilling enough fear in us that we'll accept the government reaching into our private lives.

At a time when abortion rights are one of the biggest driving issues of politics at the national and state levels, Republicans keep losing—even in "deep-red" areas. Britt, to no one's surprise unfortunately, avoided even mentioning abortion rights. This was especially striking since Biden, in his address, specifically discussed "reproductive freedom" and the voting power of women. He vowed that if the American people "send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again." (Rebuttals are prepared in advance, but everyone could have known that Biden would of course discuss this issue.)

Just like many true conservatives, I personally consider myself "pro-life" in how I feel about abortion. But I also recognize that the government should keep out of these private decisions for women to make. As the Kaiser Family Foundation reported, women across the board—including 70 percent of Republican women—overwhelmingly say that "decisions about abortion should be made by women and their health care providers."

These decisions often involve women's health and lives. Here in Texas, our state's abortion law has "made miscarriages more dangerous and more devastating," The Dallas Morning News said in an editorial.

Washington's intrusion into this issue is as "big government" as it gets—something the Republican Party is supposed to be against. But the GOP is plowing ahead with all sorts of abortion ban efforts anyway, as though somehow party leaders hope that women won't notice or care. Even Ann Coulter has called on the party to stop, warning that "there will be no Republicans left."

Britt did say that the party strongly supports "continued nationwide access to in vitro fertilization." But GOP senators recently blocked a bill that included federal protections for IVF. And many support an act that dropped specific language protecting IVF. Amid all this, the future of fertility services remains unclear. Women are not OK with this.

The GOP establishment has decided that fears about border security will overpower other issues at the ballot box. So Britt focused largely on it. But it wasn't lost on me, and many other women, that she took a devastating story about a girl and tried to use it falsely as a political weapon. Now an adult woman, the victim of this harrowing tale has herself criticized Britt. I don't know any women who would want such nightmare experiences being used this way.

The Republican Party keeps shooting itself in the foot. Why not listen to women, and to the country as a whole, and put forward policies that many will actually support? Instead, the GOP seems to think that it can distract us by offering up some sort of Stepford Wives imagery, with talk of God and gun rights mixed in.

It's not just Britt. In states across the country, including here in Texas, Republican leaders are pushing candidates like this, who are also similarly avoiding issues so many of us want to be heard on. Note to the party: That isn't doing it. To win over women, you need to actually pay attention to what we have to say.

In my local race, I'm not running away from issues important to women. I'm confronting them head on. And I expect to win.

Sarah Stogner is a lawyer, mom, activist, and candidate for D.A. of Texas' 143rd District.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.