After the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sept. 18, 2020, the liberal faction of court lost its most notorious member. Ginsburg was a stalwart supporter of Roe v. Wade which protects a woman's right to abortion. Conservatives in courts around the country have been trying to challenge Roe at the state level. Now that RBG has left the bench and the world, and Trump has nominated a new conservative woman to the bench, Amy Coney Barrett of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.
Barrett is a favorite of the social conservative faction because of her belief that life begins at conception. For Roe advocates, this is the worst possible situation.
Biden criticized Trump for nominating a replacement for RBG so close to the election and for her intent to overturn the Affordable Care Act. Overturning this law would remove coverage for people with preexisting conditions. In his statement, Biden said that Roe would likely be overturned as well, but he did not address what this would mean for women.
Overturning Roe v. Wade would mean that states across the country could very easily implement bans on abortion, forcing women to do abortions at home or travel to other states to obtain one.
In order to win this election, regardless if whether Trump's nomination passes through, Biden needs to speak about abortion as a central issue of this campaign. Women in America are scared.
Biden's plan would establish protections for abortion even if Roe were to be overturned, and he pledged to defend the portion of the Affordable Care Act that would require insurers to cover birth control.
Biden has the right idea on reproductive healthcare. He clearly supports women. He now needs to start talking about it more. Biden needs to come out and reassure the millions of women who fear losing reproductive healthcare if Roe is overturned. He needs to explain how his defense of the Affordable Care Act that Trump has tried to destroy will make sure women's healthcare is insured.
Biden also needs to talk about the larger implications of abortion. Why do we need abortion in America? We need abortion for several reasons — in some cases the life of the mother is at risk. Other times the woman was raped and does not want to give birth to her rapist's child. But in many cases, a woman chooses to have an abortion because in America we have no guaranteed access to child care, a non-livable minimum wage in many parts of the country and no guarantee that this mother is going to be able to give this child what he or she needs while also pursuing a career.
This data from the Guttmacher Institute reveals that 73% of women that had abortions in 2004 said they had the abortion because they could not afford the baby. This was before the global pandemic that caused the greatest unemployment in our history.
No one likes abortion but politicians like Biden need to make that clear to the righteous conservatives who believe life starts at conception that in order to do away with abortions or at least to perform less abortions, we need a president that will work to make living in America more affordable. Trump touts himself as a pro-life politician but has allowed over 200,000 Americans to die. Fourteen million additional Americans were unemployed because of the pandemic that he failed to create a national strategy for.
Can you blame a woman that is scared to give birth to her child right now?
I think it is great that Biden is capitalizing on his support of the Affordable Care Act as Trump works to push Amy Barrett through the nomination process. However, I think he needs to also talk about ways that he hopes to get to the root of the reasons that women's have abortions in the first place.
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