How Terrified (Or Unconcerned) Are Democrats About Defending Abortion Rights? Their Statement About The Supreme Court Draft Opinion Didn't Include The Word "Abortion"

My post on Wednesday included a bit of Rebecca Traister's 2019 article from New York Magazine ("Our Fury Over Abortion Was Dismissed For Decades As Hysterical"), in which she expressed her disgust at right-wing extremists who have been "laboring to roll back abortion access, with absolutely zero knowledge of or interest in how reproduction works".

More importantly, she said she has "no small amount of rage" for Democrats "who have refused, somehow, to see this coming or act aggressively to forestall it . . . who have relied on the engaged fury of voters committed to reproductive autonomy to elect them, at the same time that they have treated the efforts of activists trying to stave off this future as inconvenient irritants".

Among these cowardly Democrats, these self-described defenders of women "theoretically on the side of reproductive rights and justice", she specifically calls out Joe Biden (who "long supported the Hyde Amendment, the legislative rider that has barred the use of federal insurance programs from paying for abortion") and Barack Obama (who "referred to Hyde as a 'tradition' and questions of abortion access as 'a distraction'").

Shortly after the post went up, I was watching a clip of MSNBC's Chris Hayes and who was his guest? Rebecca Traister!



From Hayes's excellent intro, in which he explains to Democrats what they should be doing, acting a bit like he was talking to a five-year-old child:

Part of what allowed this to happen, what got us to this point where the overturning of Roe appears to be imminent, is that Republicans understood and were clear-lied about the wild unpopularity of their own aims. And rather than dropping those aims, they did not. They simply pursued them through means separate from mass public opinion. They stacked the court with anti-abortion judges . . . And they were very, very quiet – sometimes just flat-out lied about what exactly they were doing. And now all of that is out in the open. And for the love of God, Democrats – defenders of abortion rights, of women and pregnant people's bodily autonomy and freedom, their ability to be equally protected by the laws – they must understand there is a reason Republicans are not talking about their extreme radical position because they know it is unpopular. That means that Democrats should talk about their position because in two-party politics, zero-sum terms, their position is popular. 

Hayes: Rebecca, what is striking to me about this moment, a moment that you have chronicled our plunge towards for years in your journalism, is that, unlike – if you look at gay marriage, marriage equality, public opinion really changed. There was a whole bunch of fights in the courts, there was a bunch of fights in the state legislatures, the brutal political conflict we see. But public opinion changed. People changed their minds. Mass public opinion changed. Public opinion has not changed here. It's been very, very steady, and yet, here we are. How do you understand it?

Traister: It's fascinating, because there's been a refusal to accept where public opinion is. There was actually a shift in polling on abortion. For a long time, you got these polls that said, the United States is divided 50-50 on abortion. And then we got better polling approaches to how you ask questions about this. And when you started to ask two different questions, one, how do you personally feel about abortion, you got the 50-50. And then, do you want abortion to be illegal, you got to these numbers that were – 70% of Americans, even in purple and red states, want abortion to remain legal. And that has been consistent. But the Democratic Party could not hear, was resistant to this knowledge of how popular this was and has shied away from it. You're pointing out the fact that Republicans have paid attention. They know their position is the unpopular one. Democratic leadership over my lifetime has not behaved as though they were on the popular and winning side of this. They have not embraced the call to defend abortion rights full-throatedly. They have refused to have the fights directly about Supreme Court nominees. Even today, the day after the leak, you had Democratic leadership in Texas supporting Henry Cuellar, the incumbent who is an anti-abortion Democrat. You have not had a party that has stood solidly, passionately, and with moral fortitude behind the defense of abortion rights. And that is part of the story of how we got here.

Hayes: There's also the fact that – and this is something you've been writing about and chronicling as well – is that it's not going to stop here. Again, people who pay attention to this know this, but I want to be clear – here's [North Dakota Senator] Kevin Cramer today. And I think this is an important message for people to hear, particularly for people [thinking] well, I live in a blue state and abortion is protected here. This is Kevin Cramer, today, saying the quiet part loud. He mentioned someone crossing North Dakota state lines to get an abortion. "I don't find a lot of solace in that just because it didn't happen to my state. So yes, I think you could expect the pro-life activists would push for federal protections." Yes, you can. It seems to me that everyone should be clear-eyed and take these people at their word about where this will go.

Traister: And I think that's another real failure on the part of the Democratic Party that has treated this as if it wasn't a reality. People who have been screaming about the loss of Roe, the potential overturn of Roe, or just the gutting of Roe, which of course remains a possibility, that it will stand as an empty shell, have been told that they're hysterical and overdramatic for years. But part of what that does, in addition to having not had the fight you are supposed to have in order to defend this, is to leave us profoundly unprepared for what's about to happen. Democrats have left their people undefended in all kinds of ways, including with a very warped perception: Don't worry. A, this probably isn't going to happen, and B, if it happens, you'll be fine if you're in a blue state – when in fact, there are all kinds of perils and wildly changing circumstances that are about to come into play as soon as this Supreme Court decision comes down, no matter how it comes down, whether it's the full overturn, or whether it's an all-but-overturned gutting.

Hayes: Yes. We should be clear here that we don't know the outcome and there's no way that what will happen with Dobbs will be the expansion of abortion rights. They will either be cut back considerably and dramatically or entirely annihilated. Those are the two options. Before this draft leaked, that was always going to be the two options.

Traister: Right. I also want to point out what is actually at stake, every day. One of my first reactions two nights ago when this news broke – I was actually watching your show as it was happening. And I was confused. Is this real? What is this leak? Does this mean this is going to be the decision? I was very confused. And what I needed – what my concern was, this country is full of patients who have appointments for tomorrow and Friday and next week. And if I'm confused about what this means – there needs to be a message sent to those patients who need care – and the care is still legal because the one thing I did note was this was not an official decision. So where was leadership? What needs to happen from Democrats who are the stewards of these rights is, in this moment, there needs to be a focusing and centering on the millions of people who need care, who are about to face criminalization, being cut off from access. There needs to be direct messaging to them about the fact that they can still go and keep those appointments in coming weeks, that this is not official. This is not about political brinksmanship right now, which I think was what so much of the media coverage and even some of the Democratic talking points have been about. One of the things that has to happen is we have to center the people who are at stake and whose lives are going to be profoundly affected by this.

Hayes: And to that point, it's hard to do that if you won't say the word abortion, right? So if you want to say, we want to make sure that women that need abortions – that's the word – if they need abortions, can access abortions, because abortions are legal and your right to obtain. And we want to make sure that you know – again, even saying the word a bunch – they don't want to do that, and so then you end up in this situation.

Traister: And it's been 50 years. And when Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, the night this draft leaked, put out their message, their statement, it did not include the word abortion. They couldn't say it. It's something that activists had been after Joe Biden about. He didn't even use the word abortion in his State of the Union Address. You know, he has used it in the past couple of days sort of unwillingly. But again, they're not treating this as a moral and actual medical emergency for millions of people and their families.