As the country braced themselves for the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, which has now been called with Donald Trump being the winner, both presidential candidates campaigned harder than ever. Both campaigns focused especially on issues like abortion, health care and the economy.
On Oct. 26, thousands of people gathered at Wings Event Center to see former first lady Michelle Obama and current Vice President and presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Obama’s main focus in her speech was the issue of reproductive rights and women’s rights. She emphasized that the problem goes deeper than abortion. She claimed that a Trump presidency would further restrict women’s access to health care for menopause, ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, cancer, menstrual complications and more.
“Even when we are not bearing children, there is so much that can go wrong,” Obama said. “In those moments, all we have to rely on is our medical system.”
Obama continued on to point out the disparity in research for women’s health and how women’s experiences, especially those of black women, are often neglected by science.
“Kamala will fight to restore our reproductive freedoms and defend our health,” said Obama. “Kamala will fight for our access to life saving emergency care and maternal care in every state. Kamala will veto any ban or bill that restricts access to contraception of IVF. Kamala will expand access to birth control and abortion pills. And she will do all of this not because she’s a woman, but because she’s a decent human being.”
Obama pointed out that these issues don’t just affect women, but also the men in their lives. This was echoed by male members of the crowd, many of whom were very passionate when Obama and Harris spoke on reproductive rights issues.
“For me, I have four sisters, so I’ve had a lot of female influence in my life,” said 16 year old Aaron Holt, a Gull Lake High School student who attended the event. ” If they had their rights stripped from them, that would be really sad. If elected, he [Trump] would appoint two more conservative Supreme Court justices, and in the long term, they might ban IVF, and other contraceptive methods, so that is really scary.”
The potential consequences of another Trump presidency, particularly in connection to abortion, were a major topic for Harris as well. Similar to Obama, Harris further emphasized that abortion is at stake for everybody, not just women.
“Donald Trump hand selected three members of the United States Supreme Court, with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade,” said Harris. “Now, one in three women in America lives in a state with a Trump abortion ban, many with no exceptions for rape and incest.”
It’s clear that both Harris and Obama saw abortion as one of, if not the most important factor in this election. However, voter polling does not align with that assumption.
According to data collected by Data for Progress, only 9% of voters said they were considering the issue of abortion most when deciding which candidate to vote for. Overall, abortion placed as being the fifth most important issue nationwide, following the economy, immigration, social security/medicare and threats to democracy.
Government teacher Michael Wright believes that this overemphasis on reproductive rights exemplifies how out of touch national media is with actual voters’ concerns.
“I think the media goes out of the way to try to paint the only concern among female voters as being abortion, which is an unfortunately sexist point of view,” said Wright. “Female voters are just as affected by the economy and inflation and a whole host of other concerns, as much as male voters are.”
Wright pointed out that the Dobbs v. Jackson’s decision didn’t ban abortion.
“All the Dobbs Decision did was return this issue back to the states. It didn’t do anything beyond that,” said Wright.” It’s just as legal in Michigan today as it was before the Dobbs decision, as it is in a lot of other states. I think, too, that there’s nothing else in his [Trump’s] platform that you could say is really curbing the rights of women.”
However, even without considering the issue of abortion, concern has been expressed for Trump’s general treatment of women. With roughly 27 sexual assault allegations against him, and multiple statements that have been viewed as misogynistic, Trump wasn’t polling well with women.
According to a poll conducted by University of Massachusetts Amherst, Harris was leading Trump 50-43 among women.
“Even prior to Roe v. Wade being overturned, there’s just been so many things that he’s said about women,” said 17 year old Aliya Spiller, a student at Kalamazoo Central High School. “You can just see from everything in the media that he does not favor women at all. I’m definitely scared when it comes to our future.”
Political tensions were peaking. Women’s issues will surely be a factor in the election and both candidate’s policies will affect women in some way. With Donald Trump being president, women will most likely be effected. The country will just have to wait and see how.
