What Will Prove More Important: Abortion or the War in Gaza?
One dilemma could preserve our democracy, and the other could endanger it.
Women all over the country are finding their options for safely ending pregnancies made impossible and even illegal, thanks to one of the key pillars of the SCOTUS right-wing judicial coup: the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Since that day, when the conservative justices shocked the world, states moved quickly and confidently to force women to relinquish their rights to their bodies.
It’s no secret that Democrats are leaning hard into running on abortion rights for the 2024 cycle. Joe Biden has promised to bring back “the protections of Roe v. Wade in every state,” and Congressional Democrats say abortion rights will be their top issue this coming year.
Democrats’ decision to center the overthrow of Roe is rooted largely in the massive success they’ve had running on abortion rights over the last two years, which helped them win a slew of special elections and outperform expectations in the 2022 midterms, staving off a red wave and keeping control of the US Senate. Pro-abortion ballot measures won in all seven states in which they appeared on the ballot since Dobbs, even in red states like Kentucky, Montana, and Kansas (Abortion Politics Might Not Carry Democrats).
Many women I speak to over a certain age (40 plus) feel confident that abortion will be the deciding factor. As concerned as many of them are about other problems in the country, the seizure of their bodies by the conservative coup underway in our country was an insult that many felt would unite women across the political lines. It very well might indeed unite a lot of women, but then there is the war in Gaza that is lighting a similar passion in the hearts of America’s students.
Students love to protest. I protested in college, although it was never a sit-in or anything. It was just attendance at massive rallies for Mike Dukakis. We were chanting against Bush and the eight years of Reagan. Hatred for Bush and Reagan burned white hot in my heart, and I was convinced that if Bush were elected, I would leave for Canada. I didn’t go. The idea of getting out there and standing up to the status quo seems not only clueless but helpless to err on the side of justice and fairness, which acts like flash paper for students. I recall being so angry when arguing with my relatives about Bush that I sometimes had to leave the house for long walks (they were all Bush voters).
There is a growing fear that these students will be the difference in the very close race taking shape. First, thousands won’t vote, which in most cases would be votes not going to Biden. Secondly, suppose the protests continue over the summer and into the fall. In that case, Republicans will show that Democrats are always aligning with “extremist minorities” — either with transgender athletes or not anti-semitic, pro-Hamas extremists.
“When we lose young people, we’re not just losing at the ballot box,” said Ms. Romman, a Democrat who is Palestinian. “We’re losing them in the entire electoral apparatus.”
In the meantime, some Republicans are seeking to paint the whole Democratic Party as extreme and overly attuned to concerns of Ivy League protesters.
Democrats “are demonstrating that they’re listening to a very small, very radical, very online segment of their base that is not representative of the broader electorate,” said Jack Pandol, a spokesman for the House Republican campaign arm, which is selling T-shirts that allude to a profanity aimed at Hamas (College Protests Over Gaza Deepen).
There are many issues this election season that will determine who votes. Given the way things have been going since the Trump storm clouds settled over our nation, there may be some issues on the horizon that will make people look back at the abortion question and Gaza as the good old days. Today, though, abortion and the continued bloodshed in Gaza are issues that will either help us fend off the rising tide of fascism or duck down holding our noses as the wave washes over us.