Democrats are counting on supporters of abortion rights to show up in big numbers this November and deliver them a victory. This election is, at least partially, a referendum on reproductive freedom, bodily, autonomy, and women’s rights. It’s a winning issue, and Democrats are finally ready to embrace it forcefully. If they had fought as hard for abortion access in the preceding decades as they promise to if they manage to hang onto the presidency, we might be in a different situation today. Still, we should see Kamala Harris’s focus on reproductive rights as vice president and in the whirlwind first weeks of her presidential campaign, and her selection of the vocally pro-abortion Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate, as signs that pressure from reproductive-freedom advocates is having an effect.
Pro-choice activists cheered when Joe Biden stepped aside; as a practicing Catholic never shy to proclaim his moral opposition to abortion, he was forced into an uncomfortable role as the savior of reproductive rights in a post-Roe election season. During high-profile interviews, Biden frequently brought up his personal discomfort with abortion and avoided saying the word abortion during his State of the Union address. For the Democrats to go all in on abortion this election cycle with such a lukewarm supporter of reproductive rights at the top of the ticket felt like watching a slow-moving disaster.
The Biden administration did take some concrete steps to protect the few federal abortion protections remaining, including suing the state of Idaho for an abortion ban that denies abortion care to pregnant patients with medical emergencies in violation of the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. In June, the Supreme…
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Auteur: Anne Rumberger
