If you doubt the political momentum behind efforts to restore and protect abortion rights, the conduct of the two major-party presidential campaigns should convince you otherwise. Donald Trump and his surrogates are trying very hard to neutralize the issue by treating it as a states’-rights matter in hopes that the election will turn on other issues where Republicans have an advantage. Meanwhile, Joe Biden and his surrogates are doubling and tripling down on their plans for turning back the tide and relegalizing abortion wherever possible, seeking to boost their own turnout while flipping persuadable pro-choice voters.
Both parties’ strategies have caused some internal dissension. Most obviously, anti-abortion zealots are upset by Trump’s apparent strategic retreat from the national abortion ban they crave and, more generally, by his eagerness to make pro-choice voters forget his heavy responsibility for the planned destruction of Roe v. Wade. Anti-abortion activists will still support him, of course, though not as happily as in 2020, when he was busily working toward creating the Supreme Court that would reverse Roe. But there are also some tensions arising between abortion-rights activists and their allies in the Democratic Party, in no small part because of fears that Democrats may damage their cause by making it seem purely partisan.
This is most evident in states that will or may have November ballot measures on abortion. In Florida, for example, a proposed state constitutional amendment that would overturn a six-week ban and restore the right to previability abortions needs to obtain 60 percent support in November — in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats and control every statewide political office. Democrats are openly hoping that support for this ballot measure will put the Sunshine State and its 30 electoral votes into play in the presidential election. But those promoting the ballot measure fear the Democrats’ embrace, as The Guardian reports:
Organizers can’t afford to appear too cozy with Democrats, especially at a time of unparalleled political discord.
“I understand the knee-jerk reaction, because it was a Republican governor that signed the six-week ban. It was a Republican-majority house and senate that created the bill itself,” said Trenece Robertson, a Florida reproductive justice activist who helped collect signatures to get the measure on the ballot. “But also, we need to do our best to make sure we as a state are unified and that we do not alienate anyone at this point, because we need as many votes as we can get.”
Similar fears can be heard in Arizona and Nevada, two other presidential battleground states that also have red-hot U.S. Senate races and likely abortion-rights ballot initiatives. If intense partisan polarization spills over from the candidate-preference races to the ballot measures, what now looks like a probable victory for abortion rights (as in every other ballot test since Roe was reversed in 2022) could become iffy. That’s even more true with respect to likely ballot tests in red states like Arkansas, Missouri, Montana, and South Dakota, where too close of an association with the party of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (who is especially identified with this issue) could be fatal.
But concerns about Democratic efforts to claim ownership of the abortion issue go deeper than concerns about the Election Day fallout of partisan polarization. There is a more fundamental annoyance with the palpable cynicism of Democratic candidates and operatives seeking to make abortion policy a political football, given the massive and immediate real-life stakes for women, as Arizona State University political sociologist Benjamin Case told The Guardian:
As part of his research, Case interviewed professional political operatives after Arizona’s state supreme court ruled a 1864 abortion ban could be enforced. Their main response, according to Case: “Oh, this is really great. Biden will win Arizona because it will piss people off.”
That sense of glee, however, contrasts sharply with the real-world consequences of abortion bans. “That sentiment predominates among the professional political class,” Case said. “Among organizers in Arizona, it was a lot different, for obvious reasons.”
Nor have abortion-rights veterans forgotten the relative indifference, and sometimes even disdain, for their cause among Democratic politicians before it suddenly became politically profitable. Jessica Valenti, for example, takes notice of an ad from Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Lucas Kunce of Missouri featuring women expressing fears about a possible ban on IVF treatments: “It’s powerful, for sure, but I won’t lie: I’m a little nauseated watching male politicians use women’s stories to win elections en masse these days when so few of them gave a shit about our rights before.” That sentiment may well extend to Biden if he continues to highlight his own involvement in the battle to restore abortion rights, given his infamous reluctance to talk about abortion positively in anything other than the most egregious cases of medical necessity.
Ultimately, of course, the fight for abortion rights does depend on Democratic Party success, at least unless and until Republicans stop their assault on these rights nationally and in the states. But Democrats should never forget for a moment that the big picture involving abortion in America remains very dark with meaningful access to reproductive-health care being denied even in places where it’s not against the law. Perhaps a little more anger and a little less joy about the abortion politics of 2024 would be appropriate along with the recognition that there’s more at stake than who wins or loses elections.
More on life after roe
- ERA Ratification Is Now Up to Trump’s Supreme Court
- The Unlikely Reason RFK Jr. Could Be Rejected by the Senate
- Project 2025’s Mastermind Is Obsessed With Contraception
