The Body Politic: Rebecca Traister

Where Is the Biden Abortion Agenda? Democrats can't coast on the issue's popularity.

SINCE THE SUPREME COURT’S overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, Democrats have pulled off unlikely victories—in red states and blue states; in oddly timed off-year contests; in places where inflation is high and their unpopular president is especially disliked—because of abortion. They’ve won state supreme court seats, legislative majorities, gubernatorial races, and an unbroken string of referendum votes on the issue. Most recently, on Election Day this year, voters approved a state constitutional protection of abortion in Ohio, rejected Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin’s promise of a 15-week abortion ban, reelected pro-choice Democratic governor Andy Beshear in Kentucky, and chose a justice who vowed to protect abortion rights for Pennsylvania’s supreme court.

The blunt-force message of this period could not be more clear: Abortion wins elections. So far, this revelation has been understood mostly as a serious problem for Republicans, who seem incapable of pivoting away from their rabidly anti-abortion base despite loss after loss. But regardless of the wins, it’s not as though Democrats can coast. For while they have perhaps finally absorbed the basic remedial lesson— abortion wins elections—the danger heading into the federal crucible of 2024 is that the party will metabolize it only in the crudest form: Abortion wins elections. If, for years, my dismay was with Democrats who spoke about abortion as if they were Sam the Eagle Muppets—stilted and faintly put off—I now cringe imagining the party’s 2024 slate of Animals, banging drums with ultrasound wands while chanting “Abortion!” over and over again.