Will Abortion Rights Decide the 2024 Election?

Kamala Harris is blasting Donald Trump for vowing to protect women whether they “like it or not” at the same time he is calling for Republican Liz Cheney to be shot in the face. We get response from The Nation’s abortion access correspondent Amy Littlefield and talk about 10 states with abortion rights on the ballot, including Arizona, Nevada, Florida, South Dakota and Missouri. Trump’s remarks are a “succinct and clear definition of patriarchy,” says Littlefield. She argues the 2024 election will be decided in large part by white women and whether they will vote for abortion rights. Trump is “laying out the bargain that white patriarchy has offered for white women in this country,” says Littlefield. “He is saying, ‘White women, we will protect you from Brown and Black men.’”

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Just days away from Election Day, Kamala Harris campaigned in Arizona Thursday and blasted Donald Trump for saying he’s going to protect women, quote, “whether the women like it or not.” Harris spoke from Phoenix just hours before Trump also made an appearance in Arizona as both candidates make a final push in battleground states.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: And Donald Trump’s not done. Did everyone hear what he just said yesterday? That he will do what he wants, quote — and here’s where I’m going to quote — “whether the women like it or not.” And — and we must vote, because this is the thing. You know, there’s a saying that you got to listen to people when they tell you who you are — who they are. And this is not the first time he has told us who he is. He does not believe women should have the agency and authority to make decisions about their own bodies. This is the same man who said women should be punished for their choices. He simply does not respect the freedom of women or the intelligence of women to know what’s in their own best interests and make decisions accordingly.

AMY GOODMAN: Donald Trump was also in Arizona Thursday, where he campaigned with Tucker Carlson. Trump suggested former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney should face a firing squad. Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, have both backed Harris in the race.

DONALD TRUMP: And I don’t blame him for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual, very dumb. She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes as voters in at least 10 states will decide on historic ballot measures that would enshrine abortion rights in their state constitutions, including in Arizona, Nevada, Florida, South Dakota, Nebraska and Missouri, which has one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans that went into effect after the conservative-majority Supreme Court gutted Roe v. Wade in 2022. The Associated Press reports proponents of the abortion rights ballot measures have raised over $160 million, nearly six times more than what anti-abortion groups have fundraised to fight the initiatives.

For more, we go to Boston, where we’re joined by Amy Littlefield, independent journalist who covers reproductive health and abortion access at The Nation, where her latest piece is headlined “Peering Into the Minds of the Moderate White Women Who Might Just Save Us From Trump.”

Amy, welcome back to Democracy Now! Why don’t we start off by talking about the violence? Let’s start off by talking about what President Trump said about protecting women whether they want it or not, and then in this interview with Tucker Carlson said that Liz Cheney should be shot, with barrels trained on her face.

AMY LITTLEFIELD: I mean, Amy, I think I actually have a more generous interpretation of Trump’s comments about, you know, protecting women whether they like it or not than many critics. I have to say, I think what Trump said from the stage is actually a very succinct and clear definition of patriarchy. I mean, feminist theorists couldn’t have dreamed of putting it so succinctly and so clearly, right? He is laying out the bargain that white patriarchy has offered to white women in this country since the colonization of this country, right? It is so clear. He is saying, “White women, we will protect you from Brown and Black men.” Right? That was the context of that quote. It was about we’re going to protect women at the border, we’re going to protect women in suburbs and cities and farms from this imagined threat of Black and Brown men who are coming to get them, right? And all we demand in exchange for that protection is your submission. That’s been the bargain of patriarchy, right?

And it’s coming at a time, of course, when women’s rights have been vaporized, and the Supreme Court, thanks to Donald Trump, has overturned Roe v. Wade. And so, you know, to me, again, I think gender theorists should be studying this quote, because it is such a distilled expression of exactly what patriarchy is and exactly what the racist bargain that it has offered to white women throughout our country’s history is, right? And so, I think, for me, the defining question of this election is whether white women, who are the largest voting bloc in this country — 38% of voters in this country are white women, and they have gone for Donald Trump over the Democratic candidate in the last two presidential elections. And to me, the defining question of this election, which is the first since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, is whether white women are going to punish the man who took away their rights and say no to this racist bargain that the Republican Party is offering them. And that’s what I’ll be watching on Election Day.

AMY GOODMAN: And we’re going to talk about those abortion initiatives around the country and how they got on the — how they got there to begin with, the grassroots movements. But I wanted to stick for a moment with this issue of Trump calling for Liz Cheney to be shot, with guns trained on her face. This week also, Fox News commentator Jesse Watters threatened to divorce his wife Emma if he found out she voted for Kamala Harris.

JESSE WATTERS: And if I found out Emma was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair. That, to me —

JEANINE PIRRO: Oh my god.

HAROLD FORD JR.: Oh my gosh.

TYRUS: Let him finish! You’re — go, Jesse. It’s our day.

HAROLD FORD JR.: Oh god.

TYRUS: It’s our day, Judge.

JESSE WATTERS: That violates this sanctity of our marriage.

TYRUS: Preach on! Yes!

JESSE WATTERS: What else is she keeping from me?

TYRUS: Exactly.

JESSE WATTERS: What else has she been lying about?

JEANINE PIRRO: Why would she have to lie to you? Why would she lie to you?

TYRUS: Roll the credits. Jesse has —

JEANINE PIRRO: Have you threatened her? Why would she lie to you?

DANA PERINO: Oh, they want me to tease.

JESSE WATTERS: Why would she do that and then vote Harris? Why would she say she was voting Trump —

TYRUS: He’s not the problem.

JESSE WATTERS: — and then voting Harris? And I caught her, and then she said, “I lied to you for the last four years.”

JEANINE PIRRO: So, you admit you intimidate people.

JESSE WATTERS: It’s over, Emma! That would be D-Day.

JEANINE PIRRO: Oh my god.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Jesse Watters on Fox. In fact, it was Liz Cheney who told women across the country, “Don’t tell your husbands that you’re going to vote for Kamala Harris, but, you know, you’ve got the privacy of the polling booth.”

AMY LITTLEFIELD: Amy, I’m a little mad at you for playing those two clips at me back to back when I don’t have a bucket here to vomit in. And I just want to say off the bat, I mean, this is the same Jesse Watters who in fact did have an affair and cheat on his wife, and she divorced him over that. So, I don’t know, there’s something deeply psychological going on here.

But on a more serious note, Amy, I mean, this is something Kylie Cheung talks about in her book Survivor Injustice. There is a phenomenon in this country that we don’t know the scope of, which is people who are in abusive relationships, whose husbands or abusive partners control the way that they vote. That is a thing. Now, I don’t mean to imply that Jesse Watters is in that situation. I don’t know the details of his marriage, nor do I want to. But I do think that, on a more serious note, this is a real phenomenon, that there are women out there who we know are hiding the way that they’re voting from their husbands, right? And we’ve seen ads about this. We’ve seen clear statements about it. We’ve seen women putting stickers in bathroom stalls saying “your vote is private.” You know, you can vote for Harris, no matter what your husband says. And I think what this taps into is a very real phenomenon, which is there is domestic violence-induced voter suppression in this country. You know, Kylie talked to women who said their abusive partners were controlling the way that they voted. And so, this is a very real and serious thing.

And, you know, I can remember being out knocking — or, observing while canvassers were knocking doors in Kansas, when abortion was on the ballot there, and women answering the door, talking about — you know, who are registered Republican, talking about their experiences with IVF and their experiences with reproductive freedom. And so, these experiences, especially in the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade, might cause women to break with their husbands and to vote for the first Black woman president.

AMY GOODMAN: Amy Littlefield, let’s talk about the abortion ballot initiatives that are in 10 states right now. Begin with Florida and DeSantis on Amendment 4 trying to prevent those who support this ballot initiative from running ads.

AMY LITTLEFIELD: I mean, Florida is by far the most high-stakes state where abortion is on the ballot this year. We have abortion on the ballot in 10 states. That’s a record for a U.S. election. Florida is a haven state for abortion access in the South, or was, until the six-week ban went into effect there, 84,000 abortions in that state before these restrictions. And so it’s crucial to restore abortion access there. We’ve seen over $100 million raised in the state, with this huge momentum behind this campaign to restore abortion access in Florida.

And it’s obviously terrifying Ron DeSantis, because he’s been threatening criminal charges against TV stations for airing ads in favor of the pro-choice amendment, prompting a judge to say, “It’s the First Amendment, stupid.” And he’s deployed election police to question people who signed the signature — you know, signed the petition to get this amendment on the ballot. So, he’s used state resources to fight this. We’re really seeing Ron DeSantis pulling out all the stops there.

At the same time, we’re seeing this campaign that knows Republican voters outnumber Democrats in the state by a million, and this is a state that has a very high threshold, 60%, to get an initiative passed. And so, there’s a huge amount of effort that has to go into persuading Republican and independent voters if this is going to pass. And so, what we’ve seen — you know, I got a hold of some of the internal guidance that the campaign is using. They talk about, you know, “Don’t emphasize DeSantis and Trump. Don’t talk about the Republican politicians. Talk about extremist politicians behind this ban.” Right? They talk about not emphasizing travel stories, but instead emphasizing cases where people’s lives were at risk or where there was sexual abuse that caused a pregnancy. And so, we’re seeing a real attempt to sort of modulate the campaigns in states like Florida to sort of tone it to a moderate frequency to hit voters who are Republican or independent and who may very well be voting for Trump and also voting in favor of abortion rights.

AMY GOODMAN: An investigation by ProPublica finds at least two people in Texas died after they were denied reproductive healthcare due to Texas’s abortion ban, which bars doctors from ending the heartbeat of a fetus even when a pregnancy is nonviable and the life of a pregnant person is at risk. In one case, 28-year-old Josseli Barnica was admitted to a Houston hospital as she began to suffer a miscarriage 17 weeks into her pregnancy. For 40 hours, doctors denied her a simple and urgently needed medical procedure to empty her uterus, which would have prevented the infection that ultimately killed her. She died three days after her miscarriage. Can you talk about that report?

AMY LITTLEFIELD: Amy, these are just tragic stories, and they keep on coming. This story about Josseli Barnica, who was in a hospital, you know, in pain, suffering for 40 hours, praying that she be able to return home to her young daughter, and she died. Right? And ProPublica has done such a good job laying out how the anti-abortion laws in Texas have led to such confusion and fear among medical providers.

The story that they published this morning on Nevaeh Crain, this was an 18-year-old girl who suffers a miscarriage starting on the day of her baby shower. Her mother brings her in to the hospital. She visits three different times and is denied care, delayed, turned away, and eventually dies, after the final hospital that she goes to makes her undergo two sonograms to confirm fetal demise.

Now, I want to say something that I think ProPublica missed in the story that published today that is hugely important. The hospital where Nevaeh Crain died was a Catholic hospital. It was a Christus facility, which is a Catholic healthcare chain. And, Amy, we’ve spoken before on the show about how Catholic hospitals operate under Catholic religious rules issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that prohibit doctors from performing abortions. This was true before the Dobbs decision. And unfortunately, ProPublica neglected to mention that in their article. And so, while I think it’s very important to highlight the anti-abortion laws in Texas, which are some of the strictest in the country, and the chilling effect that those laws have on people in lifesaving emergencies, it’s also important to note that this was far from a perfect system before the Dobbs decision and before these laws went into effect in Texas, and that we had religious hospitals, including Catholic facilities, like Texas, that were turning women away in these life-threatening emergencies. And, in fact, I and others were doing that reporting before the Dobbs decision. And so, we really need to look at the sort of compounding levels in our healthcare system that have all failed women.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, if you can talk about Arizona, how activists got this again on the ballot and how critical this is, because if people perhaps are not going to the polls to vote for president, but they go to the polls because they want to ensure reproductive healthcare and access — since they’re there, they’re going to vote for president? And the question is: Will they vote for the one who’s against abortion or for abortion? President Trump says if he’s president, women will stop thinking about abortion.

AMY LITTLEFIELD: Oh, right, another beautiful, patriarchal fantasy foisted upon us.

I mean, Arizona, I remember sitting here, Amy, talking to you about Arizona and how they were sending us back to the 19th century — right? — with their Civil War-era abortion ban. And, of course, you know, while that’s not in effect anymore, it galvanized the state over the issue of abortion there. And so there’s been tremendous momentum in states like Arizona, activist groups, organizers, people who have mobilized over this issue getting this on the ballot. Arizona and Nevada, both swing states, both places where abortion is directly on the ballot.

And I think another defining question of this election is whether these ballot initiatives — and again, we know ballot initiatives on abortion are popular. All seven times abortion has been on the ballot since Dobbs, it has won. And so, I think the question is really whether that popularity of abortion rights extends to Democratic politicians up and down the ballot in these swing states.

AMY GOODMAN: Amy Littlefield, I want to thank you for being with us, abortion access correspondent at The Nation, independent journalist who covers reproductive health. Ten states — Montana, Maryland, Colorado, New York, Nebraska, Florida, Missouri, South Dakota, Nevada and Arizona — will have abortion on the ballot. And for many, they’ve already voted, because so many people have voted so far. We’ll link to your latest piece, Amy, “Peering Into the Minds of the Moderate White Women Who Might Just Save Us From Trump.”

Next up, we look at House and Senate races across the country with journalist John Nichols in Wisconsin. Stay with us.