Meg Kinnard/AP Photo
Since the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade leaked, reproductive justice leaders and advocates have rightfully been in a state of rage-infused anxiety, primarily because they warned of this for years but also because they wanted to know what all the pro-choice Democratic elected leaders were going to do about it. The impatient response by many pundits and lots of Democratic leaders has been to “just vote.” But to add insult to injury, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield recently said that the administration’s goal is “not to satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party.”
To remind Bedingfield: The Democratic Party is overwhelmingly made up of those of us who support abortion rights, who vote, organize others to vote, and want to see their elected leaders do what they can with the power they have to protect those rights.
Because it seems to bear repeating again: About 8 in 10 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (82 percent) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Democrats have felt so strongly about it in recent years that it’s in the platform of the Democratic Party, under “Securing Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice.” This platform was proposed and ratified by delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention, who were elected by Democratic activists in their home states across the country and territories of the United States of America. That’s the same convention where Joe Biden and Kamala Harris accepted their party’s nomination to be president and vice president, respectively.
Highlights of this section include: “We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion” and “Democrats oppose and will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to reproductive health and rights.” Based on this language in the party platform, and the consistent polling of people who vote for Democrats, being aggressive in supporting abortion rights is not outside of the “mainstream” of the Democratic Party but in fact very much at the center of where the party is now.
I came to align with the Democratic Party in part because of my commitment to reproductive rights and justice. My first organizing effort after college was organizing young Democrats on college campuses to join the 1.2 million people in Washington, D.C., for the 2004 March for Women’s Lives, the largest march in the nation’s history explicitly in support of reproductive rights and justice.
For the longest time, I felt a little outside of the mainstream of the Democratic Party for a bunch of reasons. While supporting abortion rights was in the Democratic Party platform, there were several anti-abortion Democrats in federal, state, and local offices. In fact, anti-abortion Democrats almost derailed passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 in a fight over public funding for abortion. For an organizing job, I once begged off making calls for an organization’s endorsed candidate, who was a Democrat but clearly anti-abortion, in favor of another endorsed candidate who was very clearly pro-choice. I got side-eye for it was but was accommodated.
About 8 in 10 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
But as Republicans leaned more anti-abortion, voters moved to Democrats. We got a pro-choice majority in the House of Representatives in 2019 for the first time, which is finally in line with where the majority of the Democratic Party and people like myself have always been. It is completely within bounds to ask the party leadership to vigorously defend abortion rights.
Credit is given to many Democratic elected officials in the states, who have risen to the occasion in not only reliably liberal bastions like New York and California, but in battleground election states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. However, they will need additional help and support from the federal level. Anti-abortion zealots aided and abetted by the Republican Party and their elected officials will seek to further criminalize those who seek abortion, even going so far as trying to sue those who make abortion access possible.
Knowing what the thoroughly emboldened anti-abortion minority will attempt to do inspires the rightful agitation of those who work to protect abortion access for everyone. Democrats who ask the White House to do more aren’t blind to the challenges the Democratic-led U.S. Senate has presented in refusing to codify Roe, which is why folks are asking for the White House to try everything they have in their arsenal, maybe even the kitchen sink.
Since the Dobbs decision, President Biden gave a more forceful speech at the end of last week on protecting abortion rights, accompanied by an executive order to shore up protections for abortion providers and patients. And even though his team initially nixed declaring a public-health emergency over abortion access, they are now considering it.
All of this is good news, but a recent Washington Post article stated hesitancy around some options because they might get shot down by courts. One can understand that, given that a Trump-appointed judge shot down mask mandates on public transportation in a pandemic. But the point is, we are in an unprecedented crisis moment. It’s not only trying something, it’s buying time for those who desperately need it.
I’ve worked most of my adult life mobilizing voters to vote for Democrats and many progressive causes like reproductive rights and justice. I’ve also served faithfully in the Democratic Party rank and file and leadership. What I know from my work is that our voters will show up, especially in midterm years, when they see elected officials fighting for their issues. During an election that determines if we can codify Roe and protect other civil rights under attack, sideswiping the folks who vote and did the day-in, day-out work in 2020 to get out the vote isn’t helpful. And if that wasn’t enough, after the draft opinion on Dobbs leaked in May, polling revealed that 2 out of 5 Republicans favored the Democratic Party’s position on abortion rights.
In other words, the mainstream is with you. Now Democrats must act like it, and take action.
