“Would it have changed your mind to vote differently if I actually died?”
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One of the toughest things to accept about this election is that voters had a chance to see the brutality of Republican abortion bans in practice, and while they still oppose those bans when given the chance to express their views in isolation, they remain happy to vote for the Republican politicians who make them possible:
Erin McCallum took a deep breath as she sat down on the couch for election night, afraid to finally find out how much her story mattered to America.
Throughout the campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris, a staunch advocate for abortion rights, had amplified experiences like the one McCallum had in a Georgia emergency room last year — warning the electorate of the harrowing consequences of abortion bans.
At the Democratic National Convention, voters heard from a woman who developed severe sepsis when doctors delayed treatment.
During the debate, Harris described a woman who bled out in a parking lot.
A campaign ad focused on a woman in McCallum’s home state who died.
McCallum started biting her nails as she stared up at the screen, where a banner at 9:07 p.m. showed Donald Trump up in Georgia by 11 points. The 33-year-old said she couldn’t understand how so many people could still vote for him, including many of her close friends and family members.
“This election feels so personal,” McCallum said. She had lost roughly half the blood in her body after her water broke early and doctors delayed delivering a nonviable fetus, medical records show. McCallum said doctors attributed the delay to Georgia’s law banning abortion once cardiac activity is detected, around six weeks of pregnancy. “All the people in our lives — it’s like, ‘Are you just going to affirm that this is okay? … Would it have changed your mind to vote differently if I actually died?’”
“I know people aren’t single-issue voters, but this is just cruel,” she said.
It’s not that this is surprising to me — I’ve been writing for a long time about complacent pundits acting like every post-Roe election would be a referendum on abortion — but that doesn’t make it easier to take.
This Irin Carmon article about the impact of Trump abortion bans is essential. There are a lot of fights ahead and the stakes remain life-or-death.