Democrats’ abortion blind spot

America, Actually with Astead Herndon

Astead Herndon interviews Jessica Valenti about why abortion rights are becoming a central but underused issue in the 2026 midterm elections. Valenti argues that Republicans are

Key takeaways

• Jessica Valenti says the White House reportedly told the Justice Department to delay abortion-related action until after the midterms because of voter backlash.
• Valenti argues that Republicans know abortion bans are unpopular, so they are using euphemisms like minimum national standard and late abortion to soften restrictions.

Main topics

• Abortion rights in the 2026 midterm elections
• White House and Justice Department abortion policy

Notable quotes

abortion is not going down, but suffering is very much going up

Conclusion

The episode offers a pointed argument that abortion remains a powerful electoral issue if

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) With just a few weeks to the midterm elections, we're adding a second America Actually episode every week to discuss the topics and issues that we've been tracking throughout the year. This week, I spoke to Jessica Valenti, journalist and founder of the newsletter Abortion Every Day, and I wanted to ask her how abortion rights are going to play in this midterm elections. why public support for abortion rights doesn't always translate to votes for Democrats, and how this fight could shape not only the midterms, but the upcoming presidential election. Let's dig in. Speaker 2 (0:38) Thank you so much, Jessica, for joining us. How are you? I'm good. Thank you for having me. All right. So there's new reporting from the Washington Sun that the White House told the Justice Department to delay abortion-related action until after the midterms because they feared a backlash from voters. That feels like a good place to start. Now, the White House has denied those conversations have happened, but, you know, I tend to be skeptical of many words they say. So let's just kind of start there. Like, what are the stakes for abortion rights as you look across the midterms landscape? Speaker 1 (1:07) I mean, it's everything. I think it's so incredibly important. And that article actually was so incredibly important. And I think it really solidified what everyone who works in this movement has been saying, which is that Republicans, the Trump administration, the White House, know very well how unpopular abortion bans and restrictions are. And they have been running from the issue even before Trump won reelection, right? They are very aware of just what a toxic issue this is for them. And they've done everything that they can to sort of pretend like they're moderate, to change the subject, candidates, you know, deleting mentions of abortion from their websites. My favorite stuff has been Republicans who try to either call themselves pro-choice or they do this thing where there was, I forget who it was, he... called a 12-week ban a plan to keep abortion legal for 12 weeks, right? Like, they are so desperate to sound like they are somehow pro-choice because they know how unpopular it is everywhere, I should say. Everywhere. Speaker 2 (2:14) Yeah. I mean, you mentioned kind of how Trump was running from this even before the 2024 election. You know, he promised that abortion rights and restricting them wasn't a big priority of his. And that kind of worked. Like, I remember being in Arizona and there were women who called themselves pro-choice but would say they were voting for Trump and say, hey, he told us that this wasn't going to be something that he focuses on in the administration. How has he lived up to that promise? Speaker 1 (2:39) Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good question. Just going back to the, I have to say something because it was so frustrating, like watching these lies sort of come out and say, oh, we're not interested in it. We would veto a national ban. He had J.D. Vance going out and saying we would never pass a national ban, maybe just a minimum national standard, which is a national ban, right? And because I think there weren't that many people who really understood the issue reporting like at a top level. Those lies were really just replicated everywhere. And we saw that coverage everywhere. And I really think that that's a huge part of the reason that he won is that people did not think that abortion would be in danger. In terms of what he's done, it's been really interesting to watch because. The biggest stuff, again, he's running away from, right? Like he hasn't enforced the Comstock Act, which would ban the shipping of abortion medication and abortion tools because that feels like a really big move. Yet, they have, you know. decimated Title IX, the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. They're going after birth control. You have multiple federal agencies calling different kinds of birth control abortifacients, right? And so they're... absolutely attacking abortion and attacking birth control and attacking reproductive rights, but they're trying to do it in this way that they're hoping no one will notice. And I think like what's happening with Mifepristone and telehealth is a perfect example where you have Republican AGs who are really trying to get shield laws in front of the Supreme Court and the Trump administration essentially like just trying to stay away from it until after the midterms. As that reporting said in the Washington Sun, what they're telling anti-abortion leaders is that after the midterms, it's going to be a free-for-all, right? That the gloves are going to come off and they're going to go all in and that they're even talking about enforcing comstock. Speaker 2 (4:35) I mean, it sounds like a kind of two prongy strategy doing a go on a bureaucratic level rather than like a kind of presidential policy level and avoiding things like a national ban, which was such a focus of the presidential campaign. And then, you know, as we're reporting to this reporting, kind of just punting it until they're insulated from political consequences, mainly after the midterm elections, where he would be a lame duck president, but not someone who is going to be like, you know, crouching to public opinion. I think this is someone who thinks. that these last two years might be the time he can execute the fullness of that agenda. And restricting abortion rights is clearly part of it. Speaker 1 (5:10) Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, he really filled his administration with like the Heritage Foundation anti-abortion crowd. So this is a priority. It might not be a priority for him. He might not care at all. It's certainly a priority for them. And even with a lot of those like bureaucratic decisions, right? the impact is really being felt on the ground when you're doing things like defunding Planned Parenthood and making sure that all of these people can't get the care that they need. It sort of doesn't matter what he says about banning abortion. It doesn't matter right now about Comstock because... the impact is already being felt. Speaker 2 (5:47) I hear you. We're now four years removed from jobs. For someone who hasn't followed each of these court cases or changes in state laws, like, what do you think is a thing they may have missed over these last several years to understand where abortion rights are standing now? Speaker 1 (6:01) That is so, there's so much. I think sort of the top line takeaway is that which I think is sort of incredible, is that the abortion rate hasn't gone down, right? Like conservatives planned for this moment for 50 years, spent billions of dollars, so much political capital, money, all of these things. And now four years out, and actually the abortion rate has gone up a little bit. And so you have, abortion is not going down, but suffering is very much going up. We have infant mortality going up, maternal mortality going up, sepsis rates going up, right? Like there is... Again, like the impact is really, really being felt. And at the same time, and I hope that more people pay attention to this because I think it's important. Republicans are trying to hide that. They're trying to hide just how bad it has been, right? Like, Texas is delaying its maternal mortality report until after the midterms. This comes after multiple states disbanded their maternal mortality committees, stacked them with anti-abortion activists. Like, they are really working very hard to cover up the consequences of banning abortion. Speaker 2 (7:09) Yeah, and I mean, it's important to say this is exactly what abortion rights advocates said would happen, right? Like that the rate of abortion would not go down, but the amount of people who suffer from the lack of protections would increase. You're saying that's what the data is showing us has occurred. Speaker 1 (7:23) That is what the data is showing us very, very clearly. And I also have to say, as someone who speaks to a lot of people who are personally impacted, the stories themselves are just insane. You want to give us one? Yeah, I'm going to give you two. I spoke to a young woman in Texas, 21 years old, who couldn't get an abortion even though her fetus had developed without a head. Speaker 2 (7:46) Wow. Like, Speaker 1 (7:48) that is the level of horror. We are talking about cancer patients who've been denied radiation. I spoke to... There's a woman in, I can't say what state she's from because she fears retribution, but she lives in an anti-abortion state. She found out her 14-year-old daughter was pregnant, and so they planned to leave the state to get her an abortion. Someone called CPS, Child Protective Services. Child Protective Services came into her home, took her teenager out of the home, kept the teenager until that appointment date had passed, and told this mother, if you bring her out of state, you're going to be charged with murder, and we're going to take both of your kids away. Speaker 2 (8:25) None Speaker 1 (8:25) of- that is legal, right? Speaker 2 (8:27) But Speaker 1 (8:27) that is what is happening on the ground now that all of these people have been emboldened. And if you're a mom who's living in poverty, who's terrified of the state, rightfully terrified, Speaker 2 (8:38) of Speaker 1 (8:39) course you're going to listen to that. So like it's the legal stuff that's happening and the suffering there. And then there is sort of like the more informal. horrific ways that it's playing out. The Speaker 2 (8:51) empowering of just kind of on ground, whether it's law enforcement or people, neighbors, to just kind of terrorize folks who are seeking that right. Speaker 1 (9:01) Yes. I mean, literally, like I have covered maybe a dozen stories, and we know there have been hundreds of women who've been arrested for their miscarriages, right? Like we're talking about women arrested for flushing miscarriages, and it really is not getting. the kind of mainstream coverage that you would expect. Speaker 2 (9:19) You mentioned kind of how this was a 50-year journey, particularly for a Republican, evangelical, Heritage Foundation-y wing that has made this their kind of clear political priority for a long time. I guess the question I have is like, why weren't abortion rights codified into law when folks had a chance, considering how telegraphed this was? I mean, we knew what the goal was. Like, why wasn't there more pro- I mean, Speaker 1 (9:47) I'm going to be honest, that's above my pay grade. I think a lot of people feel that way. I, you know, I think I think a lot of people feel