The Current - What this election might mean for abortion in the U.S.

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Abortion is top of mind for many U.S. voters following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. We talk to women in Michigan about what the issue means to them, and what this election means for health care and reproductive rights across the whole country.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. It is a beautiful fall day on campus at Michigan State University. The leaves are turning, the sun is out, and students are making their way across the common as the clock tower chimes. A group of friends is walking by the river that runs through the heart of this campus. All of the students say they are going to vote.

Kelly is from Wisconsin. She says abortion is one of the key issues for her this November. It's a fundamental right a woman has to her body. And so it shouldn't even be on the table for like a question mark, but it is. So it's like, all right, at least we need to have this like right secured. For some of her peers, though, it's not that straightforward. I'm kind of conflicted on the issue. You know, I got a religious more background where, you know, pro-life. But then there's also like the rights issue of pro-choice. So, you know, I'm kind of conflicted. You know, I just like being politically involved. So I always vote. After Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, Michigan was the first state to enshrine abortion rights into its constitution.

Audrey Lance says that doesn't mean people here should feel complacent, though. Thankfully, we did get abortion rights enshrined in our state constitution. But I think it's really important for people to understand that if there is a national abortion ban in the United States, which is absolutely, I think, going to happen if Trump is elected, the constitutional amendment won't matter in Michigan. There's the supremacy clause in the United States where what happens at the federal level takes precedent. And so a national abortion ban would still mean that abortion was illegal. Audrey is an OBGYN specializing in maternal and abortion care. Hi.

Hi, Audrey. Nice to meet you. We meet her at her home in a leafy suburb of Detroit. Halloween decorations are on most of the lawns. Signs for Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz are on Audrey's. Audrey says she sees the effects of the end of Roe firsthand in her practice, especially women coming to her from states with abortion bans or restrictions. We were absolutely inundated with patients at my clinic. On a weekly basis, I see patients, you know, at least one or two patients from Texas, from Georgia, from Florida, from

Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee. It's really crazy, because when you look at the map of where patients can get an abortion at this point, you're like, wow, you know, Louisiana or Alabama, that seems so far. But when you look at the map, this really is one of the closest places for them to come. And they're paying for planes, they're paying for hotels, they're paying for childcare. It's absolutely, it's heartbreaking to see those patients. And whenever I see them, I tell them, I'm so sorry that you had to travel so far to get this care. Women are going to do what they have to do to get abortion care. And abortions have been happening since the dawn of time. They're going to continue to happen,

regardless of legality. It's just going to be whether they are legal and whether they are safe. And we've seen now, and we're going to continue seeing stories of women who have actually died from not being able to access safe actually died from not being able to access safe abortion care or not being able to even access treatment for a complication after their abortion because doctors, nurses, hospitals are so terrified of the ramifications to them. I would love to say that I would always put my, you know, patient first, and I want to do that. But also when you're faced with prison, that's a really hard choice. And so I think that, you know, patients are desperate, and they kind of do what they have to do.

Outside her office hours, Audrey is dedicating every spare moment, I feel kind of like I have to be doing something. And that is exhausting. No, I'm not going to lie. That is exhausting. But like a marathon, I know there's an end to it. I'm hoping that it will be a happy ending. I'm hoping that it will be a happy ending. I'm hoping that it will all be worth it. But I definitely, you know, I lived through 2016. I was an abortion care provider then. I was an OBGYN then. And at this point, I feel like I literally can't go to sleep at night if I don't feel like I've done everything I could that day. And that's really just how I'm living right now. She has two young daughters, and she says their future and the prospect of Kamala Harris winning the election keeps her going.

I can't even tell you what it will mean. You know, and I can't wait to see the look on my daughter's face, because she's old enough to know what's going on. She knows that she would be the first woman and she knows how unfair that is that that has not happened yet. And so I really, I can't wait to see her face when she's elected. I think that that is going to be, face when she's elected. I think that that is going to be make everything worth it. And we are planning to go to the inauguration, did book a hotel and everything. And, you know, I don't know what will happen if Trump is elected. But if Kamala is elected, I want my girls to be there to witness that historic moment to say that they were there

and understand the importance of it. It would just be amazing. And, you know, at the same time, it's not going to fix everything. When Barack Obama was elected, that didn't make our society not racist. You know, it chipped away at a lot of things, and it did a lot of good, You know, it chipped away at a lot of things and it did a lot of good, but it didn't solve everything. But I think it will allow so many people to breathe a sigh of relief. Turn left onto East 11 Mile Road, West 11 Mile Road. Lansing is the state capital of Michigan. It's about an hour and a half drive west of Detroit. And that is where Michigan's Right to Life offices, just steps in the state legislature.

Emily Kroll is director of the Political Action Committee for Right to Life. I was always a what we call pro-life person all the way through from the very beginning, as long as I can remember. Faith for me was just the starting point. It's probably pretty obvious I was raised in a Christian household. When Roe v. Wade was overturned in June of 2022, the first reaction was just joy. It was something that generations had worked for and were working with the hope and the belief that someday this might happen. And it was the fruition of a lot of dreams. Emily says she is not focused on ending abortion access in Michigan right now. There are so many factors going against women when they are facing an unexpected pregnancy, economically, socially.

It's just difficult, which is why pro-life people we talk about, we want to help women make the choice for life by providing prenatal care, by providing tax breaks, by providing what our pregnancy resource centers do, which is loving care, physical needs, emotional needs, all the way through so that women are empowered to make a choice for life. And that's where we are in this because abortion, as you know, is in the Michigan Constitution. It's not on our ballot this year, no matter what many people will try to tell you. It's not. And what we're focused on is making sure that women have everything they need to make the

choice for life if they would like to. But Emily would eventually like to see a total ban on abortion, including in cases of rape and incest. The only reasonable exception, she says, is the life of the mother. So Right to Life of Michigan has, from the beginning of our organization back in the 1960s, advocated that the life of the mother is an exception for an abortion. So I believe and we believe as pro-life people in Michigan that your circumstances of conception do not change how your value is as a person. Now, rape and incest are horrible crimes. Rape and incest are horrible crimes.

And the person who perpetrates that on a woman should be punished to the full extent of the law. Emily says Democrats are using fear tactics around abortion, and abortion isn't the motivating issue pro-choice activists say it is. I would say to people who feel as if their right to bodily autonomy is under attack, that look around you, the policies that are being put in place from the top of the ticket to the bottom of the ticket in national elections and state elections is not threatening your right to what to do with your own body. The pro-life position is that it's not just your body. But for now, abortion is legal in the majority of the United States. And at the top of the ticket, both presidential candidates have said they would do nothing to change that fact.

Several states have. And that is their right to do so as states. And at the same time, all those states are surrounded by states that don't have those restrictions and so it's it's the same thing that's the beauty of the American federalist system of different states having different laws and people have the ability to choose where they're going to live just like here in Michigan they have the ability to choose what to do with their unexpected pregnancy. And that will continue for as long as the American people decide that's how they would like it to be. Right to Life has volunteers out door knocking right now.

We asked to go along with one of them, but Emily says they keep their volunteers' identities confidential. identities confidential? The reason that we try to keep our canvassers as confidential as possible is really a matter of how safety has really kind of changed in the last couple of years. I'm sure you saw in Canada, in the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022, there was a rash of violence against pregnancy resource centers, against pro-life agencies in the United States. We had an incident with one of our canvassers in 2022 that was shot while canvassing at a door. And we really just want our people to be as safe as possible. Despite the work she's doing, Emily says Michiganders have a lot more on their minds than abortion. We're a big, messy family here in the United States

where everybody's got different opinions all the time. But what we've seen even nationally is that it's other issues that are driving people to the ballot box, namely the economy, followed by border security. Crime fits up there in the top issues as well. And abortion really isn't at the top of people's minds this year. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons,

but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Jessica Valenti is a writer and activist. In the hours following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, she started a newsletter called Abortion Every Day, chronicling the news state by state as new laws around abortion access took effect. That documentation was the foundation for her new book, Abortion, Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win. Jessica, hello. Good morning. Go back to 2022. I mentioned that you launched this newsletter in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned. Why specifically did you want to launch this? You know, it was almost by accident at first to tell you the truth. I was just so angry and upset, like a lot of American women, I think, about Roe being overturned, that I just started

to write at a sub stack that I already had going on about sort of the court cases and the horror stories that started to come out really immediately after I was overturned. And within a few days, there was so much happening. There were so many news stories breaking. I realized, actually, this is a newsletter that needs to happen. You know, someone needs to be tracking this every day because there's just so much. And it's funny because in the beginning, I sort of wondered, you know, will it always be this way? Will I be able to do a daily newsletter? Will there be enough news six months, a year, you know, from now? I probably could put out a newsletter every hour and it still wouldn't be enough.

It's interesting. This leads to a book. And the first line of the book, this is not something that you often read when somebody writes a book, is that you write that you in some ways resent having to write this book. Why do you resent it? I do. I do. You know, because it feels like a defense of my humanity and a defense of my daughter's

humanity. humanity and the defense of my daughter's humanity. It feels humiliating to have to explain to people why women should have basic human rights, why we shouldn't be left to go septic in hospitals, why we shouldn't be left to bleed at home instead of being given miscarriage care. That said, I am grateful for the opportunity to write the book and to connect with people who are doing this work all around the country. It really has been as depressing as things have been here for the last two plus years. Seeing the amount of activism and the amount of energy that has gone into this issue has been just incredibly inspiring as well. Who are you trying to reach with the book? Because one of the things, again, early on that you talk about is this accusation that you might

be preaching to the choir. Yeah. You know, I like to say that I'm not preaching to the choir, I'm arming the choir, and I'm giving them sort of the information, context, language that they need to go out and evangelize on this issue. Because one of the things I hear so often from readers, and this is especially true when it comes to younger women, is that they care a lot about this issue. They feel really passionate, but they don't always know what to say. And they often feel like they're being talked over, dismissed, condescended to. And so I really wanted them to feel like they knew exactly what they were talking about. They had all the information that they needed. I don't believe in talking to brick walls

or trying to, you know, change hearts and minds when we don't have to, right? Like this is an issue that American voters have made their decision on. They want abortion to be legal. We don't need to change hearts and minds. We need to make sure that voters' voices are heard. I want to come back to that in terms of people making up their minds. One of the things that you do is you spend a lot of time in the book in some ways reframing abortion. And there's a few things that you say. One is abortion is not something to be apologized for or a necessary evil. It is proactively, objectively good.

Explain that to somebody who might lean back when they hear that it's not something, for example, to be apologized for. lean back when they hear that it's not something, for example, to be apologized for? I think one of the biggest mistakes that we've made with abortion rights, that pro-choicers have made with abortion rights over the last, you know, 50 years, is that we've been on the defense, right? We've been on the defensive. We felt the need to apologize for it. You know, there's been this sort of framework of abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. Abortion is healthcare. You know, It is in that way morally neutral, but it is a morally proactive good when you think about what it allows women to do. Abortion is something that helps you go to school, get out of an abusive relationship, get into a wonderful relationship. Something I

write about in the book is abortion was really something that helped me to build my family. I had an abortion, and three months later, I met the man that I would go on to marry. And three years later, we had our daughter. My family that I have now would not be here, would not exist without that abortion. And then when I had an abortion later, when my daughter was three years old, because pregnancy was putting my life at risk, that, again, helped me to ensure that my daughter would have a mother. And so I think if we can reframe the way we talk about abortion and think about abortion as something that helps to build people's lives and build people's families, because that is what it does, it'll just get to the heart of the matter a little bit quicker. That's why you say that abortion isn't the end of something for many. It's been the start of something. Yeah. We've been talking with people in Michigan, in a state that has voted to amend its constitution to enshrine abortion rights.

How does that move what Michigan is doing compared to access to abortion that people have in other parts of the country in 2024? I mean, it really is so striking because you have a state like Michigan that's enshrined, you know, abortion rights in the state constitution. And it's like going to a different country, right? Then if you go to Tennessee or Texas, it really is, the country has just become completely split in this way. I think you've really seen what is possible in Michigan when politicians talk about abortion unapologetically. What was also been really interesting to me is seeing sort of the anti-abortion response in Michigan and how that is playing out in other states that have abortion on the ballot for November. They're sort of using Michigan as this scare tactic.

Donald Trump has said that he will not support a federal abortion ban. Are you at all reassured by that? No, there's something that Republicans are doing right now when it comes to talking about federal abortion restrictions to trick voters into thinking that they would not support a national ban. And what they're doing is they're saying, we would veto a national ban, right? We've heard Trump say it. Vance, J.D. Vance has said something to that effect of like, I don't support a national ban. I support a national minimum standard or restrictions. Now, the reason they're saying that is that those are actually the same thing.

A national minimum standard is a national abortion ban. Because within the anti-abortion movement and with anti-abortion politicians, the word abortion ban means something very different than what American voters understand it to mean. What they mean when they say abortion ban is a total prohibition on abortion, even in cases when women's lives are at risk. And so under their definition, America has zero abortion bans. And so when they say, I would not support a national abortion ban, what they're really saying is, I would not support a total prohibition on abortion without an exception for women's lives. What they mean by a minimum national standard, they're talking about something

like the 15-week abortion ban that Republicans have been trying to pass for years. And so it's really so vital that we're talking about this language that they're using because that is how they are trying to trick voters. The language matters as well for Democrats, right? I mean, in the book, you condemn what you call tepid messaging. What's wrong with saying choice instead of abortion, which is what a lot of Democratic politicians will say. They say, we support choice.

choice instead of abortion, which is what a lot of Democratic politicians will say. They say, we support choice. I mean, I think it just goes back to this sort of, you know, defensive stance that is unnecessary. And it also just gives this impression that this is something that we need to be apologetic over, that we do need to sort of say, be icked out almost by abortion rather than just having a full-throated defense and talk about this as healthcare, as a human right, as bodily autonomy, bodily integrity, talking about it. I will say I appreciate that Democrats have been talking about abortion as freedom. I think that is an incredibly important shift in language that they've made. But we have to be willing to just say abortion and say what we mean. Do you think Democrats took their eye off the ball or their foot off the gas pedal or

whatever metaphor you want to use when it comes to this issue in past? I mean, one of the things that people will say is one of the reasons why Roe was overturned is because people thought it was precedence would hold water and that that was a done deal. I mean, yeah, I think we failed. I think that we absolutely failed. And what is so frustrating about this is that feminist abortion rights activists had been warning for years that this would happen. We said again and again, this was coming.

We were told that we were overreacting. That's not gonna happen. And what's really frustrating in this moment for me now as someone who does this work is I'm seeing the same thing happen again. We're issuing these warnings about birth control, about this is already happening. They're already attacking birth control. I've written about how conservatives are going after women's right to travel, women's right to leave their state. That is happening.

And you're sort of told, in the same way we were told about Roe, that you are exaggerating,, exaggerating, that you are issuing scare tactics. That's never going to happen. Hysterical, you know. Yeah, that word, you gotta love that word. But if they would have listened to us before, maybe we wouldn't be in the mess that we're in now. The issue of abortion is going to be on the ballot in 10 states in this election. How important do you think abortion is? I mean, there are any number of ballot box issues on the 5th of November, but when you take a look at this issue, how important do you think it will be on November 5th? I mean, I think it's going to be the issue. You know, there's a reason that every single Democrat is campaigning on abortion rights. And I think we're going to see a lot of people driven to the polls who are single issue voters, who are abortion

voters. You know, I think there's been two or three polls at this point that have come out to say for women under 30, they call this their number one issue for November. When you see something like the Supreme Court hearing arguments over whether states should be able to allow hospitals to deny women life-saving abortions, that is going to spark something in you. How are you feeling about the election? I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. You know, I think a lot of us have a bit of PTSD from past elections, and so I don't like to get too hopeful. I like to stay realistic. But, you know, I'm also reminding myself, no matter what happens with the election,

But, you know, I'm also reminding myself, no matter what happens with the election, this work is still going to be there. This work is still going to be there, especially in states with abortion bans. No matter who is elected as president, that is not going to change the abortion ban in Texas. That is not going to change what's happening to women in Alabama. And I do worry that if Kamala wins, that there'll be less enthusiasm for this issue, or that people will think that they can sort of relax a little bit, right? I really, I don't want women in red states to be left behind. Jessica Valenti, I'm glad to talk to you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for having me. Jessica Valenti is the author of Abortion, Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.