NBC Boston | Here's why abortion will be such a big issue for the ballot come November
Since Roe was overturned, more than a dozen states put abortion limits in place, while others have taken steps to protect abortion rights measures
By Jeff Saperstone and TJ Killilea
Originally published on NBC 10 Boston
One thing we've heard from leaders of both parties in the last few years - abortion is on the ballot this November.
The issue of abortion has been front and center since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Since then voters in a number of states, including Vermont, Kansas and California have approved abortion rights measures.
In the 2022 midterm elections, abortion rights drove women to the polls, which resulted in surprising success for Democrats. President Joe Biden and the Democrats think it could work to their advantage come November.
Rebecca Hart Holder is with the group Reproductive Equity Now. She says the issue is galvanizing for Democrats.
“Vote. That is what we have to do, “ Hart Holder told NBC10 Boston. “We have to turn out and vote and make our voices heard.”
It's also an issue for young voters.
A recent poll from Harvard's Institute of Politics found that 18 to 29-year-olds were twice as likely to describe themselves as pro-choice, and 69% of women 18 to 29 and 55% of young men say access to reproductive health care is important when choosing which state to call home.
“I think it really gets to the salience of this issue in the everyday lives of people, “Hart Holder told NBC10. “People don’t want government telling them what to do in their private lives. “
But former president and current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been doubling down.
The New York Times recently reported that he privately supports a 16-week abortion ban. And last year, Trump took credit for appointing the conservative Supreme Court justices, saying on social media "I was able to kill Roe v. Wade."
Since Roe was overturned, more than a dozen states put abortion limits in place.
Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, says abortion will be a big issue this fall.
"What Dobbs did was remove, at the Supreme Court level, the issue of abortion and return it to the states," Maloney Flynn told NBC10 Boston. “So the people in a truly Democratic process get to make their own laws.”
Maloney Flynn said the Women's Health Protection Act, which is based by Biden, is too extreme.
"That legislation would essentially eliminate any pro-life protections that have been passed across the country since Dobbs in 2022," she said.
Democrats and supporters of that bill say it will protect the right to access abortion care nationwide.
And the issue is even more complicated for Republicans following the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling on IVF saying frozen embryoes are human beings, and those who destroy them can be held liability.
Trump has said he would support the availability of IVF.
