We Need Better Than a Return to the Roe Status Quo
Kamala Harris knows abortion is a winning issue for her. But rather than just stand by and watch the votes roll in, Democrats should run on a broader vision of reproductive freedom, including abortion access and economic policies to support families.
Abortion-rights activists protest in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 24, 2024. (Aashish Kiphayet / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)
Democrats are counting on supporters of abortion rights to show up in big numbers this November and deliver them a victory. This election is, at least partially, a referendum on reproductive freedom, bodily, autonomy, and women’s rights. It’s a winning issue, and Democrats are finally ready to embrace it forcefully. If they had fought as hard for abortion access in the preceding decades as they promise to if they manage to hang onto the presidency, we might be in a different situation today. Still, we should see Kamala Harris’s focus on reproductive rights as vice president and in the whirlwind first weeks of her presidential campaign, and her selection of the vocally pro-abortion Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate, as signs that pressure from reproductive-freedom advocates is having an effect.
Pro-choice activists cheered when Joe Biden stepped aside; as a practicing Catholic never shy to proclaim his moral opposition to abortion, he was forced into an uncomfortable role as the savior of reproductive rights in a post-Roe election season. During high-profile interviews, Biden frequently brought up his personal discomfort with abortion and avoided saying the word abortion during his State of the Union address. For the Democrats to go all in on abortion this election cycle with such a lukewarm supporter of reproductive rights at the top of the ticket felt like watching a slow-moving disaster.
The Biden administration did take some concrete steps to protect the few federal abortion protections remaining, including suing the state of Idaho for an abortion ban that denies abortion care to pregnant patients with medical emergencies in violation of the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. In June, the Supreme Court declined to protect emergency abortion care and dismissed the case, temporarily allowing doctors in Idaho to provide emergency abortion care while the case returns to a federal district court.
Vice President Kamala Harris has been on a reproductive-rights speaking tour this year, rallying people outraged at the overturning of Roe and repeating the talking point that Donald Trump’s abortion bans are the cause of the suffering and fear of the past two years. She made national headlines (and infuriated antiabortion leaders) for being the first sitting vice president to visit an abortion clinic. As governor, Tim Walz joined in the public appearance at the Minnesota Planned Parenthood earlier this year.
Walz is a strong and vocal supporter of reproductive rights and has supported efforts to ensure access to abortion in Minnesota in recent years. He signed the Minnesota PRO Act in January 2023, a law guaranteeing the right to abortion, birth control, and other reproductive health care. He also signed into law the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act, which shields abortion patients and providers from out-of-state legal or disciplinary actions for providing legal care; prohibits Minnesota agencies from enforcing out-of-state subpoenas, arrest warrants, and extradition requests; and protects patient records and privacy. The law was part of a package of safeguards for abortion and LGBTQ rights, including protections for gender-affirming care. Walz also ended a program that gave millions of dollars of state funding to antiabortion crisis pregnancy centers, and he talks openly about his own family’s use of IVF to have their children.
Despite these positive signs, leftists must continue to pressure Harris and elected Democrats to expand their horizons. It’s not only reproductive health care that’s necessary for communities to thrive, but also Medicare for All, universal childcare, more funding for public education, paid family leave, and a higher minimum wage — all demands of the reproductive-justice movement. For too long, advocates of popular and expansive goals to meaningfully support families and ensure access to all reproductive health care decisions have been met with derision and defensiveness by mainstream Democrats.
Abortion can no longer be considered a third-rail issue, with politicians afraid to bring it up or make the connections between abortion access and economic issues. Now that Democrats have finally figured out that abortion is a winning electoral issue, it’s up to reproductive-justice supporters to pressure our elected officials to advance the broadest progressive agenda and to ensure that they follow through on their campaign promises.
That means moving beyond the inadequate protections of Roe, which did not ensure abortion access for those who needed it most. In early August, over four hundred physicians providing sexual and reproductive health care signed onto a letter urging the Biden administration “to broaden their efforts, moving beyond Roe’s framework, and talk about the future our patients deserve boldly and bravely. We ask you to champion policy solutions that are not premised on returning us to the narrow protections Roe created. We deserve so much more.”
Beyond the Roe Framework
In Harris’s August 6 rally in Pennsylvania, her language evolved from the “restore Roe” call that Biden popularized. Under her presidency, she said, “we will restore reproductive freedom.” This shift in language is an important indicator of the power and popularity of activists’ demands for a broader definition of reproductive rights. Hopefully this means that Harris is moving beyond her previously stated goal of returning to the status quo under Roe. In a 2023 interview on Face the Nation, she said, “We’re not trying to do something new. We need to put into law the protections of Roe v. Wade, and that is about going back to where we were before the Dobbs decision.”
If there was ever a moment to do something new and advocate for increased access to reproductive health care while working to end abortion stigma, it’s right now. Popular support for abortion is at an all-time high, and one in eight voters say that abortion is the most important issue for their vote in the November election. In poll after poll, a majority of respondents want abortion to be legal in all or most cases. When the question is posed as one of government interference in reproductive health care decisions, support for abortion rights is even higher: in a March 2024 Axios/Ipsos poll, eight in ten people, including two-thirds of Republicans, agreed that the government shouldn’t be involved in how a woman manages abortion issues.
As journalist Jessica Valenti points out, “If Democrats want abortion to help them win this November, they must go on offense.” We need bold ideas for expanding abortion access and ensuring that rights to reproductive health care are not tossed out under a future antiabortion president. The protections of Roe — which are obviously preferable to the current hellscape with near-total abortion bans in effect in more than a third of the country and a national ban advocated by Republicans — left too many people without access, and should not be the end goal.
A right without access is meaningless, and access was frequently blocked by pre-Dobbs restrictions on Medicaid funding for abortion, state restrictions on health insurance coverage of abortion, and onerous state regulations on abortion clinics that have led to many clinic closures. Roe did not ensure that everyone was able to make unencumbered decisions about their bodies and lives and was decided on flimsy legal arguments about a constitutional right to privacy that did not sufficiently advance or protect women’s rights to autonomy and self-determination.
Democrats have momentum on abortion rights. They know the issue can turn out voters and is popular even in Republican-led states. Every time abortion rights have been on the ballot since Roe fell, they have won. This is the moment for Harris and the Democrats to take meaningful action on the economic factors that prevent many women from making the reproductive decisions that are best for them. To win over voters who care about abortion and gender equity, they need to make it clear what they will do to ensure abortion access and reproductive justice, and not just give lip service to abortion as a right that means nothing to those unable to access it.
Beyond the inadequate calls to return to the protections of Roe v. Wade, Harris could call for expanded access to care by funding clinics and direct service providers, for ending the criminalization of pregnancy outcomes (especially for pregnant people of color), and for the repeal of the Comstock Act, a nineteenth-century anti-obscenity law that could function as a nationwide abortion ban. She could speak out about the harm of regulating abortion at any point, calling for abortion to be accessible and affordable for anyone, for any reason, at any stage of pregnancy.
The Democrats have the opportunity to take bold action to ensure access to reproductive health care without barriers or stigma and support families with progressive social policies. People’s health and lives depend on their willingness to take advantage of the moment.