The GOP Is Waging a War on Abortion Rights, But You Wouldn’t Know It If You Watched the RNC

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency: Breaking with Convention.” We’re broadcasting from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, throughout this week, as we come to the conclusion of the Republican National Convention.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: On Thursday, Donald Trump spoke for over 90 minutes in the longest convention speech in history. One word he never mentioned was “abortion” or the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade thanks to three conservative judges he appointed. Republican vice president candidate J.D. Vance also did not mention the word “abortion” once. In fact, according to The Washington Post, the word “abortion” wasn’t mentioned a single time from the stage during at least the first three days of the convention. However, this week, CNN did unearth a 2022 comment by Vance where he said he supports a national abortion ban.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think it will be resolved nationally?

J.D. VANCE: Yeah, I mean, I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about what was not talked about at the RNC, we’re joined by Amy Littlefield, abortion access correspondent at The Nation.

Amy, welcome back to Democracy Now! So, we’re talking a lot about what the president and other Republican speakers spoke of this week — the main theme, vilification of immigrants. They didn’t talk about abortion, but certainly that is a major theme of what President Trump wants to do in this next term. Can you talk about what was and hasn’t been talked about?

AMY LITTLEFIELD: I mean, not one single word about abortion from Donald Trump last night in all 92-plus minutes of that speech. Not one single word from J.D. Vance, who we know is a die-hard abortion opponent. I mean, this is stunning, Amy. Even though I knew to expect it, to see Donald Trump talk more about crime rates in Venezuela and El Salvador than he did about what is arguably the crowning conservative achievement of his entire presidency, which is handing conservatives this 50-year-long dream, you know, the culmination of this 50-year-long dream they’ve had of overturning Roe v. Wade — I mean, this is arguably his most unequivocal victory, and he doesn’t mention it once? Again, I knew to expect it, because I know that Republicans can read the polls. They know that abortion has triumphed in all seven instances where it’s been on the ballot since the Dobbs decision. They know that a rising number of people support abortion rights. They know that 79% of people oppose the idea of a nationwide abortion ban. And so, it’s no surprise.

And yet, it really felt like the end of an era to me. I mean, I felt like I was watching the end of 40-plus years where Republicans have opportunistically used the issue of abortion to win elections, and now they’re suddenly taking abortion by the shoulder and shuffling her off the stage and saying, you know, “Well done. You served your purpose. You helped us consolidate power over the last 40-odd years. And we’re not going to talk about you anymore.”

There’s several really important caveats here that I want to highlight. I mean, one is that the fact that Republicans aren’t talking about abortion does not in any way mean that they’re not going to continue to act on it. Right? I mean, if you read the Republican Party platform, it’s clear they’re endorsing the idea that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution protects fetal personhood, protects the due process and equal rights of embryos. If you read Project 2025, it’s clear they believe that the Comstock Act from 1873 — right? — another instance of a Victorian-era law coming back to life potentially from the history books — is a de facto nationwide ban on the mailing of abortion pills. And so, they’re using these ways that don’t actually require any public buy-in, potentially. We can see their plan is to go for a nationwide ban on abortion that doesn’t require the approval of Congress, that doesn’t require the democratic process, because they’re going to go back into the history books and, you know, revive this law, potentially, from an era when it was used to go after obscene books and pornographic drawings.

So, the other really important caveat, Amy, as you’ve covered on this show, I mean, it seems clear that the newfound target that’s been tapped to replace abortion is transgender people, and in particular transgender children, some of the most vulnerable people in this country. The punchline about women’s sports, about, like, “Well, at least our side knows the difference between men and women,” I mean, that was a drumbeat as much as “drill, baby, drill,” as much as the anti-immigrant rhetoric at this convention. Six hundred and twenty-five anti-trans bills introduced this year, a record. I mean, I used to sit here and say that same — you know, similar numbers when we were talking about anti-abortion legislation years ago. So, we’re really talking about that same anti-abortion playbook now being trained on transgender people, because Republicans think that’s going to be more popular.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Amy Littlefield, I mean, it may be because of the silence from the stage on the question of abortion that many media reports seem to conclude that the Republican Party is now softening its stance on abortion. Do you believe that’s true?

AMY LITTLEFIELD: Far from it, Nermeen. I’m so glad you asked that question. I mean, it was widely reported, when the Republican Party platform came out, that they were softening their stance on abortion. And that’s because it mentions, you know, states getting to have a say in abortion. First of all, I want to push back on this idea that allowing states to decide on abortion is in any way a moderate stance. Right? We have now total bans in at least 14 states in the country. We’re witnessing nightmare scenarios where hemorrhaging women are being airlifted to neighboring states by helicopter, where people in the process of miscarrying are coming close to death, where people in states like Texas experiencing pregnancy complications are dying, where people are being consigned to pregnancy against their will. OK, that’s under the scenario now, which is states deciding — right? — which is a deeply unequal system.

But, secondly, they’re not giving up on the idea of a nationwide ban. And that’s very clear when you read the text of the Republican platform itself, which endorses the idea that the 14th Amendment protects the constitutional rights of embryos and fetuses. And if that is the case that the 14th Amendment already protects embryos and fetuses, then we don’t need a new constitutional amendment or a bill passed by Congress to ban abortion nationwide, because they can make the argument that fetuses are already people: “Look, it’s right here in the Constitution.” And that argument, of course, would have ramifications for in vitro fertilization. It would have ramifications for contraception. And so, far from being a softening of the stance, I think we have to be really concerned about this effort to, again, go back to existing texts. You know, understanding that abortion is more popular than any candidate in this election and she’d win today if you put her on the top of the ticket, you know, they’re looking for ways to do this through anti-democratic backdoor channels. And the platform has it right there in plain text. And I think much of the media really missed the mark when they accepted the idea that this was a softening.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Amy, as we begin to wrap up right now, if you can talk about the map right here — you know, something about the Republican and Democratic conventions, you know, every state has a post, and it says its state — but the map of abortion access in this country right now, and the significance of who is president, who gets to appoint judges, not just Supreme Court justices, but federal judges on down, and why that matters so much to when it comes to the issue of reproductive rights and abortion?

AMY LITTLEFIELD: It matters so much, Amy. And we’ve seen what Trump’s three appointees to the Supreme Court have done, wreaking havoc not just on abortion rights, but on a host of other issues underpinning our democracy.

I mean, the map of abortion access right now, you know, I was recently in Florida, which is one of at least six states that’s going to have a ballot initiative on abortion this election. These ballot initiatives are what I’m going to be watching very closely. Florida has a six-week ban in place now. Florida used to be the destination state. It was like a funnel into which, you know, patients from all across the South would travel. Eighty-four thousand abortions, I believe, last year. And now they can only do abortions up until six weeks.

And so, I sat in the waiting room of a clinic in Florida and watched people being sorted into groups based on the difference of a few millimeters of growth on an embryo the size of a pea — right? — whether they were six weeks, one day, and they were too late, or whether they were five weeks, three days or five weeks, four days, and they could get an abortion still in the state of Florida.

So, people in Florida are going to be voting directly on this issue. That’s also the case in Nevada and a number of other states. It could be the case in several other states, including the swing state of Arizona. So, I think abortion is going to have a huge impact on this election.

But I also want to say, you know, it’s kind of incredible that we have, you know, the two top-of-the-ticket candidates, at least right now as we’re speaking in this moment, are Donald Trump, who declared himself “very pro-choice” many years back, in 1999 — right? — and Joe Biden, Joe “Not So Big on Abortion” Biden, or “Not Big on Abortion” Biden, who, you know, in the ’70s and ’80s went so far as to vote against race exceptions and incest exceptions in the federal funding ban, the Hyde Amendment, the ban on Medicaid federal funding of abortion. And where, you know, these are kind of the two people to choose between in an election where abortion is going to be one of the primary issues, I think the Democratic Party really needs to articulate a strong pro-abortion stance that doesn’t just involve abortion up until viability and for rape and incest victims, right? And I think the point of what your previous guest was saying, we need a Reproductive Justice New Deal. We need a platform for 2024 that is about economic justice, as well as abortion, and that ties those two issues together, if the Democrats are going to win.

AMY GOODMAN: Amy Littlefield, I want to thank you for being with us, abortion access correspondent at The Nation magazine.

Next up, we look at the recent killings of two Black men here in Milwaukee. Samuel Sharpe was a homeless veteran, and D’Vontaye Mitchell was killed by security guards outside the Hyatt, where delegates are swarming through right now, where journalists are getting their press credentials. More in a minute.