Why are laws regressing? Do they reflect opinions of the majority of Americans?

We are attempting to start up our Thinkers discussions again online. For now, we will be trying Saturday afternoon meetings on the second or third Saturdays of each month. We hope everyone can join us.

This month's topic will focus on changes in laws, primarily child labor and abortion rights. The most important part of the discussion should center on why the changes are happening, and are the majority of Americans really in favor of the changes.

NPR, April 27, 2023:
In states like Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, and Arkansas, newly passed or pending laws allow companies to hire children without work permits and allow children to work longer hours under more dangerous conditions in places like construction sites, meat packing plants, and automobile factories.
The Department of Labor reported a 69 percent increase in the number of children, many of them undocumented migrants, employed illegally by companies since 2018.

From Bloomberg Law:
The bills’ supporters include business groups such as the National Federation of Independent Business, plus retail and restaurant associations. They argue the measures could help employers that are struggling to hire enough workers, and say the criticisms unfairly conflate illegal conduct with efforts to let teens work a few more hours on school nights or avoid state-mandated paperwork.
The legislative movement coincides with highly-publicized discoveries of companies illegally employing children, including more than 100 hired to clean meatpacking plants late at night using caustic chemicals in Arkansas and seven other states. The US Department of Labor fined the service contractor that employed them, Packers Sanitation Services Inc. Ltd., $1.5 million and has pledged a renewed focus on federal enforcement of child labor laws.
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/states-look-to-ease-child-labor-laws-as-federal-scrutiny-grows

Are businesses promoting these laws because they can't find employees, or to find employees who will accept lower wages? And if businesses need to hire migrant children, why aren't they promoting the need for migrants being allowed into the country with easy worker visas?

Abortion bans are exploding since the overturning of Roe vs. Wade happened in June 2022.
From The Washington Post:
In the six months that followed the ruling, there were an estimated 43,410 fewer legal abortions in states that had bans, according to a recent survey.
New restrictions are continuing to take effect, with Republican-led legislatures pushing to enact bans in some states that have become abortion havens. In April, Florida passed a six-week ban, which will outlaw most abortions in the country’s third most populous state. More restrictions in other states are almost certainly on the way.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/24/abortion-state-laws-criminalization-roe/

From Pew Research:
Today, a 61% majority of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 37% think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. These views are relatively unchanged in the past few years. The latest Pew Research Center survey, conducted March 7 to 13, finds deep disagreement between – and within – the parties over abortion.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/13/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases-2/

In states where abortion has been on the ballot, voters approved the right to abortion (CA, MI and VT), and in states with proposals against the right to abortion (Kansas and Kentucky), voters rejected them.

From Politico:
After watching the pro-abortion rights side win all six ballot initiative fights related to abortion in 2022 — including in conservative states such as Kansas and Kentucky — conservatives fear, and are mobilizing to avoid, a repeat. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/19/abortion-on-the-ballot-not-if-these-republican-lawmakers-can-help-it-00087688

It seems that state legislatures are not representing their citizens, but advancing the agenda of conservative groups.

The link to this event is (copy and paste): meet.google.com/ohk-dgir-shz