McCloskey: Roe is gone but abortion is still central this election

This is the first presidential election since Roe vs. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022. Instead of fading into the background, abortion is front and center.
Vice President Kamala Harris is running on restoring abortion rights. “I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom,” she told Wisconsin Public Radio.
Listening to her campaign, you’d have little idea that four in 10 Americans are pro-lifers, according to Gallup, or that only a minority of Americans (35%) support legal abortion without restrictions.
On most issues, former President Donald Trump is the polar opposite of Harris. When it comes to abortion, it’s less clear. The Supreme Court justices Trump appointed were in large part responsible for the overturning of Roe, but he is now moving in the opposite direction.
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“My administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” Trump recently declared on Truth Social. This is not a one-off slip. Long-standing pro-life language in the Republican platform was removed this summer, and Trump has spoken out against the heartbeat law in his home state of Florida.
Let me just say: Having something so big, so life changing, decided by politicians who are always changing their minds feels deeply unsettling, no matter which side of the issue you sit on.
In response, states have introduced a patchwork of abortion policies, with red states seeking to curb abortion access and blue states seeking to expand it. Heartbreaking stories are emerging amid confusion within the medical community about what’s within bounds from unclear and disjointed state laws.
Somehow, amid all of this, the number of abortions has actually increased from the Obama era, reaching a decade high in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute. This suggests that the demand for abortion hasn’t diminished, it’s just shifted to different places.
There’s certainly a case to be made that, in a country as divided as ours, more issues should be determined at the state level to reflect deep political and ideological differences, as is now happening with abortion. But it is also the case that many people live where they do for a wide variety of reasons (to be close to family or a job, for instance) and something as fundamental as a mother’s health or a child’s life shouldn’t be luck of the geographic draw within the same country.
Instead of being prudent and pragmatic, the current abortion landscape feels like political expediency and for many, abandonment — especially given that states most likely to champion pro-life causes have some of the fewest protections in place for vulnerable women and children. This makes little sense outside of our political division.
As I’ve written many times, the status quo facing families with kids is not good. The majority of parents do not have protected and paid time off with their baby, and maternal health is deteriorating. There are widespread concerns about America’s falling fertility rate, along with the rest of the developed world.
Regardless of your views on abortion, we should all be trying to make America a better place for kids and parents.
Along these lines, both Harris and Trump are offering increased cash benefits for children in the form of the Child Tax Credit, but they seem to be missing the bigger story. Having a child is one of the most sacrificial, hopeful acts that a human can undertake. Americans are more pessimistic about their children’s futures than anytime in recent memory, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A few thousand dollars in the first year of parenthood (albeit likely a good idea, especially if it’s paid for) doesn’t change the broader constellation of concerns and feelings of instability in the air. The moment you’re talking about kids, you’re talking about the future. We need more thinking about the type of country we are leaving to them.
This week on Beyond Talking Points: An American Middle Podcast, I am talking about these issues with Ethics & Public Policy Center fellow and my friend Patrick Brown. Brown and I talk through Trump and Harris’ approaches to abortion and what’s likely to change (or not) depending on who wins the presidency.
We spend a good deal of time talking about the Child Tax Credit, which was expanded while Trump was president and is a policy priority for both candidates. We even squeezed in a conversation about kids and tech, because I couldn’t help myself.
From our conversation, I was reminded that there’s so much nuance not reflected in our political debates; nuance that an issue as complicated and difficult as abortion demands. And too often we view these issues in policy silos instead of the broader dynamics at play, like what it’s actually like to raise a child in America today.
If anything, this is the small upside of abortion being front and center. Because even if candidates aren’t diving into the nuance of tough issues, it’s a chance for us to think more deeply about it. It’s a big issue. It’s one we shouldn’t let go on the back burner.
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