Mind Your Damn Business!

What's that feeling again . . . oh yeah, hope!

Raise your hand if you predicted that the best line about reproductive freedom ever in a presidential campaign would come from our new Dad VP from Minnesota? Ha! I didn’t either.

One of the most striking aspects of the Harris/Walz campaign is their unapologetic support for abortion rights. We have never seen a national campaign with candidates willing to say the word "abortion" and to lead on it rather than add it to the bottom of our issue to-do list.

Back to our unlikely warrior for repro: it helps that Walz and his wife are willing to talk about the fact that they were able to have two children because of IVF. Take that, Alabama!

Here is a great line from Joy Reid that sums up the differences between the two campaigns right now:

“J.D. Vance wants 10-year-olds to have babies. Tim Walz wants 10-year-olds to have lunch.”

A few more thoughts on where we are in regard to repro right now:

Abortion is an economic issue. The talking heads often fail to connect the dots between reproductive freedom and economic freedom. Abortion is both a health issue and an economic reality. The fact is that over 60% of people who have abortions already have children and partners. As Janet Yellen said, “eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades” (Guida 2022). We need to keep reminding people of this.

“Trump abortion bans.” We have often been out-phrased by the far right. Pro-life. Clean skies. Freedom agenda. These are bastardizations of the true meanings of the words, and they are also fantastically powerful political weapons. We are finally in the game! Kamala is using the phrase “Trump abortion bans” to describe the states that have restricted abortion access since Dobbs. It’s a brilliant way to force Trump to own these barbaric efforts. We need to keep using it. And we need to make sure that Republicans bear the full brunt of political outrage for all of the pain, and literal deaths, they are causing.

Broadening the base. The key to winning this election will be motivating Independent and Republican voters to vote for Democrats. These voters have created the winning margins for abortion ballot initiatives in the last two years.

Abortion is more of a motivating factor for these voters than ever before. “75% of moderate white women told us they will vote solely or partially based on abortion. While this is extraordinary, it is still significantly lower than the 89% of white women overall (both pro- and anti-choice) who say this issue will influence their vote choice.”

This is not just a top-of-the-ticket vote. We need people who may have never voted for Democrats before to continue voting all the way down the ticket to county commissioners and town councils, where this fight extends. Voting this way will tell the Republican party that trying to rip away abortion rights, contraception, and IVF is the pathway to catastrophic results at the ballot box.

Below are four terrific organizations to explore to learn more about what they’re doing.

Your action items:

Targeted voter turnout groups. Take a look at these four orgs and consider sharing them with others or donating to them:

Red, Wine and Blue (they played a critical role in winning the OH ballot referendum)

Women4Us

Galvanize Action/Galvanize USA

Leadership Now Project

Post with the hashtag “I understand the assignment.” This is an online meme of people telling their personal reasons for supporting the Harris candidacy. Here is an example from Threads:

You might remember back to 2008 when we whispered our support for Hillary in private places like Pantsuit Nation. (I also had a teensy little “H” bumper sticker, like it was a secret code among supporters.) We are loud and public right now, with people taking to social media to share why they are supporting Democrats in this race. And we’re giving permission for others to do the same. #Iunderstandtheassignment and share why you are participating in this election.

Talk to people about abortion. This is not a new to-do item, but it’s important to keep raising it. We have learned that when it comes to repro rights, silence equals death. I know it can be hard and awkward to have these conversations, but it’s better than letting the antis win. Here is a guide from the ACLU you can use to have this conversation with people you know.

Let’s go win!!!