If You Care About Abortion Access, These Are the 5 Midterm Races That Matter
Don’t be dramatic, they said. When Trump won: Don’t be dramatic—Roe isn’t going anywhere. When Merrick Garland was blocked but Neil Gorsuch confirmed, when Brett Kavanaugh blustered, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died: Don’t be dramatic—you’ll always have access to abortion, especially in a country where 85 percent of citizens think the procedure should be legal in some or all circumstances. And when, once Roe fell, the dismissal shifted: Don’t be dramatic—abortion isn’t “banned,” it’s just up to the states to decide!
Since SCOTUS overturned Roe, many of these states’ leaders have wasted zero time eroding access to health care. There was the Indiana doctor investigated for giving an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim and the countless viral screenshots from nurses and doctors about making a miscarrying woman bleed for days or forcing another to carry a stillbirth to term.
“In the past three months, abortion has been banned in 17 states, and 1 in 3 women in the United States has already lost access to the right to control their own bodies,” says Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Into this chaos come the midterm elections, where politicians must make promises around an issue both sides might call devastating in its consequences: Will they codify abortion access or restrict it even further?
Yes, every election and every vote counts—you’ve heard that a million times. But if reproductive rights now depend fully on each state, then we need to be paying attention to state legislators farther and farther down the ballot. To focus in on the people you really need to know, Cosmo and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund compiled a list of the five races that, depending on their outcome, could significantly impact the fate of abortion access in our country—either because the role is so important, the race is so tight, the opponent is so violently anti-choice, or all of the above.
If you’re committed to fighting for reproductive freedom, these races are crucial—even if you live thousands of miles away. “It’s critically important that we use our voices and our votes to take back some of the control that was lost,” McGill Johnson says. “Casting our votes in November brings us a step closer to the country we want to see: one where people can govern their own bodies, lives, and futures.”
Only about a third of voters under 30 came out in the last midterms, which was—actually, sadly—the highest rate in three decades. But even that turnout won’t cut it this time. Don’t be dramatic? Don’t be complacent. Abortion extremists are counting on young people not to vote. Here’s an opportunity to surprise them like they surprised us.
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