The outcome of this contest will not only determine the legal landscape of reproductive rights but also shape the political contours of American democracy in an increasingly polarised era. (File photo)
Both candidates in the US presidential election — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump — represent diametrically opposed views on abortion access and reproductive rights at large. Harris has positioned reproductive rights as one of the defining issues of her campaign, framing the post-Roe landscape as a crisis of democracy. She has been extremely vocal about the erosion of Roe v. Wade as not merely a rollback of reproductive rights but symbolic of a broader assault on personal liberty.
During the presidential debate in September, Harris stated that she supported Congress passing a federal law that would protect abortion rights. After ProPublica published a report on the death of two Georgian women as a result of delayed medical care linked to the state’s abortion ban, Harris planned a last-minute rally in Georgia where she kept reiterating the term “Trump abortion ban” as a strategy, directly linking restrictive reproductive policies to the former president’s tenure.
The Harris campaign’s Reproductive Freedom Bus tour, launched in Florida, will cover 50 states till November 5, featuring stories and personal accounts of those who lived through the real-life impacts of these restrictive abortion bans. She has been championing the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), a federal legislation to re-establish the nationwide right to access abortion care and became the first vice president to pay an official visit to an abortion clinic. By repeatedly invoking the fundamental tenet of “choice” and framing reproductive rights as an extension of border civil rights struggles, Harris has sought to mobilise voters across race, class and gender.
The US Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022 was a significant setback for reproductive freedoms in America. The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling ended the constitutional right to an abortion, which was no longer federally protected but up to each individual state. The labyrinth of legislation and patchwork of laws across the country have resulted in either stringent restrictions or outright bans on abortion. The judgment has had a spiral effect on other rights to make personal decisions about family, relationships and bodily autonomy. In the wake of the Dobbs ruling, the inability to get abortion care has led to a widening net of criminalisation, ensnaring doctors, nurses and pregnant people, which has devastating effects on patient’s health. It is apparent that bans create barriers to accessing abortion care, even in situations where the exceptions they outline should apply.
Despite his role in the appointment of judges who dismantled Roe, Trump has maintained strategic ambivalence, seeking to placate the evangelical and pro-life groups while simultaneously appealing to the centrist base. However, Project 2025, a policy proposal by private conservative groups, has called for measures including revoking the approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, banning the mailing of abortion pills and requiring states to report all abortions to the federal government. This is in line with Republicans’ drive to enact increasingly regressive policies to restrict reproductive rights based on the notion of “foetal personhood” — as soon as the egg is fertilised, it becomes a person with full legal rights. This notion has become a central legal and moral underpinning for conservative efforts to restrict abortion access.
At present, 21 states ban abortion or restrict the procedure earlier in pregnancy. According to the Pew Research Centre, 63 per cent of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. About 1 in 8 voters say that access to abortion/reproductive rights is the most important issue driving their vote. Democrats gained substantively in the 2022 midterm elections by focusing on reproductive rights. Harris has consistently emphasised the importance of safeguarding access to reproductive healthcare as an issue of personal freedom and highlighted the disproportionate impact of the erosion of such protections for women of colour, members of the LGBTQ+ communities, undocumented people and low-income individuals. She contends that these restrictions not only violate fundamental rights but also exacerbate the existing inequalities in healthcare access. Both EMILYs List and Reproductive Freedom for All, the biggest US abortion rights groups have officially endorsed her.
Comprehensive access to abortion and reproductive rights is necessary to support an equitable society, empower reproductive decision-making, maintain economic security and express autonomy. The politics of reproduction is inseparable from the politics of citizenship, with state control over women’s bodies reflecting a form of biopolitics that diminished personal sovereignty. Ultimately, the 2024 election isn’t merely about the right to abortion as a policy issue but a referendum on the meaning of freedom and how deeply the electorate feels the consequences of the post-Roe world. The outcome of this contest will not only determine the legal landscape of reproductive rights but also shape the political contours of American democracy in an increasingly polarised era.
The writer is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University, Sonipat
