On this week’s episode of The Brief, hosts Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld delved into messaging on abortion in the wake of the bombshell leak of Supreme Court’s draft opinion on Roe v. Wade, why this expected opinion has a chilling effect beyond abortion itself, and how this news could really shift the tide for Democrats ahead of November. Christina Reynolds, vice president of communications at EMILY’s List, joined the hosts them to share more about the important work being done in the continued fight to protect abortion access.
The repercussions of this decision could be wide-reaching and extend beyond reproductive rights—touching on everything from contraceptive access and gay marriage. As Eleveld put it:
We don’t know how this is exactly going to influence the election, but I think on a personal level, people are trying to figure out, ‘What does this mean for me? What does this mean for my family? What if I have kids, if I have daughters? What does it mean for them?’ And then there [are] people like me. I got married to my wife in 2017. Like, what does it mean for us, frankly? I’ve been thinking about this purely in terms of abortion [but it’s about so much more than that]. And a good friend of mine said to me, ‘Well, it’s been nice being married to my partner for the last several years.’
While Republicans have chipped away at abortion and reproductive rights for years, they hadn’t succeeded in actually eliminating them entirely. The leak of the draft was a wake up call that this has always been their ultimate end goal, and Moulitsas believes that many voters will now act accordingly with this understanding of their extremist agenda, which, as Eleveld said, will have wide-reaching consequences:
[This reality] is going to take a little bit of time to seep into how people feel about the coming election, and a lot of it will depend on how leaders step up to the plate and channel that rage, and that anger, and that sorrow that you just talked about, for sure. We’re on the precipice of something major. Something’s happening here—I can sense it. And like I said, it feels like … we’re under assault again. So it’s important, what you just said, Kerry. This is not just about abortion, and I don’t want to minimize that part, because this is massive. But Alito’s draft opinion directly took aim at gay rights. It directly assaulted the underpinnings of decisions on interracial marriage and contraception. And he literally said that it wasn’t a right because it wasn’t a right when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. And really, the only people who had rights back then were white, male property owners. That’s not a lot of us.
There is a lot at stake, Moulitsas argued, and despite the fact that there is a good chance the final decision will water down some of those passages, now Americans know and can at least mentally prepare for what the conservative Supreme Court justices want to do. “Now they may want to hide that agenda, that broader agenda … ‘Oh, don’t mention gay marriage and anti-sodomy laws. Don’t mention that, because we’ll do that more quietly,’” he said. “But you know, now we know! The jig is up. We’ve seen it. And this is, to me, the conservative blueprint for what they want America to look like.”
The pair reflected on a clip from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s fiery speech a few days ago in which she championed abortion rights and drove home how terrifying it feels to know that your own body isn’t under your control. As Eleveld explained:
The level of vulnerability that you feel when you’re pregnant is just off the charts, and the idea that you wouldn’t be able to make decisions about how to work with that pregnancy, what you’re going to do about it, you know, life-altering decisions about not only having the child, but if there is some horrific abnormality that could endanger your life, etc. I just can’t even imagine. But that’s how Republican Party is. They don’t want people to be able to make their own decisions. They want to be dictating in your bedroom, in your life, what you’re going to be doing with your own body, your own healthcare.
Eleveld reminded the audience that the decision is not final yet; what we saw was a leaked draft. Despite this, she pressed that Biden needs to take resolute action on this now that we have all seen the severe language of the draft.
Reynolds, joining the conversation, emphasized that organizations like EMILY’s List that have been fighting for reproductive rights have known for a while that this is an issue that was going to matter in the election. Moreover, she noted, voters have been very clear that they agree—that they support Roe, the legal right to an abortion, and do not want to see their rights taken away. Now, she explained, EMILY’s List is taking action to push back through policy campaigns and supporting specific candidates up and down the ballot:
We knew this would be an issue in the election. To be quite honest, we thought that we were going to face a challenge of a few months, having to convince voters that this right was truly at risk. And the Supreme Court, in that leaked memo, just did that job for us. And the policy ramifications are tragic, they are devastating, and … we are in it to say, ‘Okay, you are going to pay for taking away our rights. We’re going to replace you with people who will protect our rights, who will ensure that Ted Cruz doesn’t make those decisions, that government is not taking away our freedom to decide our future, our family, our healthcare, any of those things. It’s really very simple, and we’re in the right place, and we’re in the place where voters are. And so we knew this was going to be an issue. We’ve been working together [with] NARAL and Planned Parenthood Action Fund as well [and are 150 million strong]. [The advocacy work] will come in a number of forms: public education campaigns, talking to voters about what this is, helping train candidates at all levels. All of the levels matter.
“Electing Democratic, pro-choice women matters,” she added.
Moulitsas wondered about any specific states her organization would be targeting with this campaign in November. Reynolds highlighted a few specific states and areas of focus: “We are looking, in particular, at states that have Democratic governors that we want to protect ... obviously, keeping the Senate and growing that pro-choice majority. Keeping the House, etc. Those things are important. We’ll be looking at those. Places like Georgia, like Michigan. Places like Arizona. And we’ll be building that out as we go.”
Moulitsas also asked how Reynolds thinks suburban middle class women feel about abortion rights. Reynolds, noting an overwhelming—usually above 70%—support for Roe across almost every demographic, replied:
It won’t shock you to know that, like the majority of pretty much every group out there, they support this right. They believe that you should get to make the decisions on your own, and that the government … should not get to do it for you. This is the thing … some of the media is playing on the Republican turf, buying into some of their misinformation and the way they frame this issue. And the reality is, that’s not where we are. We are not talking about which degrees, how much do you want to allow—they are trying to get rid of all of it. They are trying to ensure that you can’t decide, full stop, for yourself. Yes, white suburban women, and suburban women of all races, they are very supportive of this issue. The polling varies, but I will say what we see across the board is a majority support outright to make this decision, a majority support Roe ... this group is, we hope, the gettable group. Hopefully, women voters will save us all.
Reynolds pointed out that there is unity among women on this issue across race makes driving the point home even more important. “I think we’re going to see this being a motivating issue for women writ large. And I think we should not discount that turnout is very important,” she said. “I think, looking at different groups—AAPI women, Latinas, Black women, and white women—they support this right. And we’re going to make sure they know who is ripping it away.”
Eleveld believes that abortion is a wedge issue that could “wedge” certain conservative-leaning women away from voting Republican for a cycle, calling out how the media narrative now seems “so far off the map”: “They keep talking about, ‘Democrats and pro-choicers, they don’t vote on this, they’re not animated by it.’ And I’m like, ‘None of that matters. None of that polling was done in an atmosphere where rights were literally being taken away. And that’s what’s happening here. Rights, a constitutional right, is being taken away.’”
You can watch this week’s episode below:
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