Ever since the Supreme Court threw precedent down the drain and overturned Roe vs. Wade, the topic of abortion has been a hot one. Republicans have found themselves shocked that abortion rights are an election-winning issue. And the Biden campaign is capitalizing on that fight.
Before Dobbs v. Jackson, abortion was already heavily restricted in numerous states. But over the last year and a half, people nationwide have been seeing what it means to live in a country without constitutional abortion protections—forced birth, criminalization of miscarriage, increased infant mortality, and extreme, even fatal risks for pregnant people.
As an organizer, I have worked on the ground with a ton of people, mostly young women and girls, who have been fired up about having fewer rights today than their mothers or grandmothers did. When working on campaigns in 2023, most of my volunteers were women. I saw firsthand that the topic of abortion is a huge driving force not just on the left, but for anyone who may think that governmental overreach and court tyranny has gone too far.
The Biden campaign is recognizing this reality too. Biden’s deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said on Meet the Press that Biden has been “adamant” about needing to restore Roe. His campaign has promised to have the strongest pro-choice platform of any general election candidate ever. Leading voices in the Democratic Party have been seizing on the issue of abortion, but many people have wanted to hear more from Biden himself.
In last year’s State of the Union speech, in February of 2023, many expected the President to directly address this topic more than he did. In total, he only dedicated about 30 seconds of that important speech to discussing the overturning of Roe, saying he would veto any potential national abortion ban. That is obviously the right thing for him to do, but there was so much more he could have said.
Protecting reproductive rights should always be a priority and post-Dobbs, it is more necessary than ever. Time and time again, abortion has proven to be a winning issue at the polls—though, admittedly with some caveats. Voters have shown they will turn out in droves to protect abortion access, though that support doesn’t always translate to votes for individual Democratic candidates that are on the same ballot.
Why so many voters will come out to protect abortion and then elect candidates that want to strip our rights away is beyond me, but President Biden will have to merge the two. He will need to energize people by focusing on this key issue while being well-rounded enough to get people to actually vote for him as a person. And beyond the election, he needs to follow through on this promise to do everything he can to restore federal abortion protections.
I do not doubt that the 2024 race will be a wild one, but I like where the Biden team is starting from.
(featured image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
