SAN JOSE, Calif. — Abortion has taken over the upcoming election, with Democratic candidates touting their pro-choice bona fides and “Roe, Roe, Roe Your Vote” signs popping up in yards as a rallying cry for progressives across the country.
The hot-button issue has buoyed Democrats’ hopes to stave off what earlier this year looked to be an oncoming red wave during the midterm elections with Republicans poised to take control of Congress as voters grew frustrated with an onslaught of troubling economic news.
But it was red-state Republicans’ attacks on reproductive rights that brought Democratic superstar Hillary Clinton to the Bay Area this week to stump for a ballot measure that polls show is almost a sure thing in deep blue California: Proposition 1.
Speaking on Thursday evening to a room of about 100 hot-pink-clad supporters and legislators at a San Francisco Planned Parenthood, former Secretary of State Clinton urged Californians to officially enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution by voting yes on the measure next month.
But her impassioned speech went beyond Prop. 1 — which is hardly controversial in the heavily left-leaning Golden State — and delved into the broader issue of what will happen in California and nationwide if Republicans continue paring back reproductive rights. The event, studded with prominent officials and legislators, captured the abortion-fervor that has swept the nation since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year and which is carrying the country full-steam ahead into the November elections.
“Oh, I think it’s huge,” said Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at Menlo College. “It’s on people’s minds.”
Sitting in front of a digital screen displaying a blue-and-pink “Protect abortion rights, Yes on 1” advertisement, Clinton moderated a panel that included California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California President & CEO Jodi Hicks. Other notable figures, including San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, Democratic Assemblymembers Matt Haney and Buffy Wicks and Democratic Sen. Nancy Skinner, showed their support from the front row.
“How many women have to die or be terribly mistreated in order to change these laws that are so Draconian?” asked Clinton, who became the first woman to win the presidential nomination from a major U.S. political party in 2016.
Although the undoing of federal abortion protections spurred 13 states to ban the procedure — with more likely to come — it remains legal in the Golden State. The California constitution already protects the right to privacy, which has been interpreted to cover abortion, and the state’s 2002 Reproductive Privacy Act also guarantee’s a woman’s right to choose. But Prop. 1 asks Californians to declare their support for abortion rights by formally enshrining it in the state constitution.
Supporters of the ballot measure had raised nearly $9.2 million as of the end of September, while opponents had raised just shy of $70,000, according to the California Secretary of State. In a poll last month from the Public Policy Institute of California, 69% of likely voters say they will vote yes on Prop 1.
But though it may seem almost guaranteed to pass, Clinton urged voters not to succumb to apathy come November.
“Will it win? Yeah, most likely, if people open their ballots sitting on their kitchen counters, it will win,” Clinton said. “In California you get delivered a ballot and thank goodness you do, but it does no good if people don’t open it up and actually fill it out. There has to be more energy, more visibility and excitement about the opportunity to vote.”
Rolling out a mega-celebrity guest such as Clinton to campaign for Prop. 1 also has the added advantage of pushing the issue at the national level, Michelson said. Democrats are leaning heavily on voters’ outrage over Roe v. Wade this election season and using it to increase voter turnout and prop up various liberal candidates. An analysis of campaign spending by the Associated Press found that by the middle of September, Democrats had already spent $124 million on abortion rights ads — 20 times more than they spent in 2018.
“By having this event and getting national coverage — because anything Hillary Clinton does is a national story — it gets the issue of abortion rights being on the ballot in the news and in front of people all over the country,” Michelson said.
Americans are passionate about abortion, and the reversal of Roe v. Wade has galvanized both Democrats and Republicans who otherwise may not have bothered to vote, Michelson said.
“On both sides there’s this, ‘Wow, this thing happened, either we’re on a roll or we need to stop this before it gets worse,’ ” she said. “And so it’s energizing for both sides.”
But GOP consultant Max Rexroad wonders how much that impact actually will be felt in California, where abortion rights already are solid. He’s not convinced the issue is bringing many more people to the ballot box who wouldn’t be voting otherwise.
“I know people are really fired up about it,” he said, “but from a policy perspective … (Proposition 1) substantively doesn’t do that much.”
Clinton on Thursday talked about going to other countries while serving as secretary of state under President Barack Obama and seeing “very intrusive” reproductive policies — from the one-child policy in China to Romania’s practice in the 1980s of mandating women to have five children. The government used secret police to follow women and required physical exams at workplaces to determine if a woman was pregnant, she said.
Clinton also referenced the story of Dr. Savita Halappanavar, a woman living in Ireland who died in 2012 from an infection after being denied an abortion during a miscarriage. Her death spurred the call to action that eventually led Irish voters to repeal the country’s abortion ban six years later.
Those types of preventable deaths are the “very sad” future that all of us fear, Clinton said.
“We’re going to have to get through this really dark period,” Clinton said, “before enough actual cases spark that kind of reaction nationally that is required.”
