One consequence of Kamala Harris’s newborn presidential candidacy is that abortion has become an even bigger campaign issue. Harris has been talking about it for months, far more than Biden did. She aims to mobilize pro-choice voters on her side.
But pro-life voters, who want more than anything else to minimize the number of abortions, also ought to vote for her. They should try to elect Democratic congressional candidates, as well. A Trump presidency, particularly if he gets a Republican Congress, would probably mean more abortions.
As a strategy for reducing the number of abortions, the half-century-long project of overruling Roe v. Wade has ended in failure. The rate of abortion went up after that decision was overruled by Trump’s Supreme Court appointees in Dobbs v. Women’s Health.
This was partly because of interstate travel to get an abortion, and partly because of the increased use of medication abortion. The Dobbs decision provoked the emergence of a new “underground railroad” of networks that make abortion pills available in every state. (The popularity of that phrase reinforces my longstanding belief that the right to abortion is properly understood as protected by the 13th Amendment’s abolition of involuntary servitude.)
Roe's reversal has had other unintended consequences. We keep reading horror stories about raped children fleeing their states, and women bleeding........