Could women’s rights and access to abortions decide the 2024 US presidential election?

The upcoming US presidential election may represent one of the most important moments for women’s rights in modern history – but it could also be women who decide its outcome.

That is the view of experts and campaigners as Americans prepare to elect a new leader for the first time since the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade in 2022 – a move which has dramatically impacted women’s access to abortion.

The hugely controversial decision led to 13 states enforcing complete abortion bans, while four others now restrict abortions to the first six weeks of pregnancy.

The change in the law was made possible by Donald Trump appointing hard-right judges to the Supreme Court during his previous presidency.

That fact has seen Kamala Harris make access to abortion a central theme of her campaign as she positions herself as the defender of reproductive rights and Trump as the man who facilitated their removal from millions of women.

A recent Harris campaign advert featured Hadley Duvall, a survivor of child sex abuse by her stepfather, and highlighted her struggle to access abortion care in Kentucky during a dangerous pregnancy at age 12.

Speaking exclusively to The Sunday Post, Christian F Nunes, president of the National Organization for Women, said reproductive rights have been a mobilising issue because of the clear difference in the positions taken by Trump and Harris.

She believes it is now clear a Trump presidency would be “extremely dangerous and horrifying for many people”.

Nunes said: “The two tickets are so different and extremely polarising.

“You have one side that is talking more towards bodily autonomy and a person’s right to agency. Then you have the other side that’s saying we’re going to push a federal ban on abortion and women who don’t have children have no worth.

“The platforms and messaging are so extreme that it’s having a direct impact on a lot of women voters and they are going to show up to make their position known.”

Trump supporters worried

Trump supporters are growing increasingly concerned about the energising effect the debate around reproductive rights has had on the Harris campaign.

According to a new survey released this week, abortion has surpassed inflation as the top issue for women under 30 in the upcoming election.

Across all age groups, women ranked abortion overall as their third-greatest concern, after inflation and threats to democracy but ahead of immigration.

But perhaps even more worrying for Trump is that the survey found two-thirds of women overall believe the election outcome will significantly impact abortion rights.

Trump says he would veto any federal ban outlawing abortion after 15 weeks but many respondents said they do not believe him.

Meanwhile, most respondents expressed confidence Harris would sign a federal law to protect abortion access if Congress passed such legislation.

© AP

Trump’s campaign has also struggled to shake off anger around his vice-presidential nominee JD Vance calling leading Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies”.

In the original interview in 2021, he questioned why some leading politicians did not have children. One of those he named was Kamala Harris, who is stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children.

The Senator from Ohio said the country was being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too”.

Vance claims the comment was merely a sarcastic remark but it is one that has stuck and appears to have had serious cut through with the American public.

Jennifer Aniston, who has spoken publicly about her struggles while trying to have children through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), was among those who criticised his comments.

Meanwhile, pop star Taylor Swift endorsed Harris for president in a widely shared Instagram post signed as “Childless Cat Lady”.

© Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock

Within 24 hours of her announcement, nearly 340,000 people had visited the voter registration website, vote.gov, using a custom link created and shared by Swift.

Nunes says the cat lady comment was disheartening and disrespectful – but also speaks to attitudes bubbling under the surface that could be reflected in policies if Trump wins the election.

She said: “It shows, to me, that it’s a distraction so that people don’t focus on the fact that there are no real policies in place.

“Childless cat ladies is such a misogynist thing to say and it speaks to their values and their beliefs. Those values will show up in their administration so I think we need to pay close attention.

“I know people have made jokes about it and tried to own it and reclaim it but the reality is that it speaks to a person’s views and beliefs about another gender, and that’s what’s concerning.”

Could it swing the vote?

Experts believe abortion rights have become such a big issue that they could have a decisive impact on the outcome of the election.

The US electoral system means the final decision could come down to results in just a few key swing states – and polls show there is little to separate the candidates.

Professor Andrew Moran, head of politics and international relations at London Metropolitan University, believes access to abortions is now one of the most important issues in US politics.

He said: “It is undoubtedly one of the issues I think the Harris campaign will use successfully to get women out to vote – and because it’s such a close election, and it clearly is, it’s going to come down to who you can get out to vote.

“We can see in some of the more conservative states that it’s causing a divide between men and women, between religious voters and non-religious voters.

“In an electoral college system where it’s going to come down to seven states that are essentially going to decide this election, and all of those seven are very close, issues like abortion are going to be profoundly important.”