Why Abortion?
The political issue of the 2010s was gay marriage. For the 2020s, it’s all about abortion.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned with the tyrannical Dobbs decision by the United States Supreme Court in 2022, I was devastated. And yet, the debate surrounding abortion has hardly subsided. In fact, it’s increased.
We can expect abortion to be another hot contender for the political issue of the year. Recently, an article from the 19th arrived in my inbox titled, “Abortion isn’t the issue in 2026, but it’s still an issue.”
But why? Why abortion? Why do antiabortion advocates continue to get their panties in a wad about abortion? The political issue of the 2010s was gay marriage. For the 2020s, it’s all about abortion.
You’d think the drive and journey to successfully dismantle Roe v. Wade would be enough. But still, conservative ‘religious’ lawmakers across the country are seeing to it that abortion restrictions find their way to their state’s debate stage, in some way, shape, or form.
Iowa most recently passed House File 2788, prohibiting the delivery of abortion medication from outside the state, which I’ve written about previously. This bill was signed on May 19 in tandem with Iowa’s current near-total abortion ban.
Kansas overwhelmingly rejected an amendment to its state constitution in 2022 that would’ve removed residents’ right to abortion. However, Kansas has yet to see movement on an additional amendment to secure and protect that right. And their state legislature overruled Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto and established support for fake abortion clinics, otherwise known as crisis pregnancy centers.
In Missouri, despite the voter-approved 2024 amendment to the Missouri Constitution that protects access to abortion, there were still countless abortion-related bills at their state legislature. This session, the state legislature passed the ‘Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,’ which ensures that a “child born alive during or after an abortion or an attempted abortion shall have all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this state, including any other liveborn child.” As Bridgette Dunlap noted in her commentary for the Missouri Independent, “This is not a thing.”
Again, I ask why? And while I ask why I scream into my pillow.
If abortion has been shown to be widely supported across the states, with even some states enshrining abortion rights into law, then why is there still this incessant need to hinder abortion access and mislead the public?
I like to think that decreased birth rates, the so-called male loneliness epidemic, and the insane costs of raising a healthy child with hardly any government help (which the 19th article noted) are all contributing reasons for the U.S.’s current political obsession. And the European socialist in me likes to think it all comes back to capitalism, the economic system America has sold its soul to.
Women’s bodily autonomy and family planning means less or no children. When a woman has contraception and her own money, she doesn’t need to submit to her husband and birth 11 children, like my great-grandmother. And because of these feminist gains, women don’t need to rely on men who aren’t offering anything substantial anyway, who instead of shaping up, are complaining that they’re ‘lonely.’ And of course, less children means a decreased workforce, leading politicians to say 1 in 3 Americans (women) are ‘underbabied.’
In caveman tongue, this essentially translates to: women’s rights bad. Capitalism good. Or more specifically, that advancements for women — contraception access, abortion access, financial independence, a choice of who and who not to marry — equate to fewer capitalist slog horses. And rather than make changes to our capitalist-dependent system, and acknowledge that women are human beings with independent minds, the solution for Dr. Oz and the rest of the Trump administration is to get more women pregnant.
And what better way to get more women pregnant than criminalizing legitimate access to abortion?
And the Trump administration and conservative Republicans in (insert your state here) don’t care about improving the lives of Americans and investing in their current or future children. That’s the point. They want Americans to have 11 children on a $7.25 federally mandated minimum wage salary. They don’t want kids to get a head start in life. They don’t want everyday Americans to succeed. They want cheap labor, so Trump and his billionaire friends can keep getting richer. And it’s all under the guise of religious superiority and morals.
When you see attacks on abortion access in your state, please know that it’s personal, and understand that it’s all pointed.
Always keep talking,
- C
