Votes for abortion rights despite Trump’s victory

Women’s march in Washington DC on January 21, 2017 (Photo: Ted Eytan, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Donald Trump is a convicted rapist, a serial assaulter of women and an out-and-out sexist. He wants to roll back women’s rights over their bodies and talks about how attractive his daughter is.

He’s used campaign rallies as an opportunity to hurl misogynistic abuse at his female political opponents—Nancy Pelsoi, Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney. And just last week, he said he would “protect” women “whether the women like it or not”.

Yet over 70 million people voted for him and some 44 percent of women voters chose him to enter the White House.

Voting for Democrat Kamala Harris wasn’t a mechanism to ensure a better life for women. But Trump’s victory is a roaring success for all the vile sexists who think women’s true role is in the home, baking bread and birthing children.

Early statistics on Wednesday show that fewer women voted for Harris in 2024 than Joe Biden. Sharon Manitta, Democrats Abroad UK spokesperson, “If people grow up in a culture where women aren’t respected, where women are looked at in a very unenlightened way, then they will vote within that culture.

“And there’s the media, if you look at the right wing media, they’re going to give you a reflection of yourself that they wouldn’t agree with.”

Sexism runs deep in US society. But Harris’ loss isn’t due to US society simply being too sexist for a woman president. If that was the case, then the voters wouldn’t choose to improve abortion access, especially in states that supported Republicans on the same night.

Referendums on abortion laws were held in ten states on Tuesday. These votes are critical since the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that effectively meant abortion laws were decided on a local, not federal level.

In seven of the ten, existing abortion rulings were enshrined into law or improved. It contained a number of significant victories for activists wanting to protect a woman’s right to choose.

In Missouri, some 52 percent of voters chose to throw out a near-total ban on abortion. Now there is a constitutional right to abortion with no legal limit on gestational age.

In Colorado, some 62 percent of voters chose to guarantee funding for women accessing abortions.

Some 62 percent of people in New York chose to strengthen abortion laws. These determine that no one can face discrimination due to “sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy”.

Although it doesn’t mention abortion, it’s widely understood to bolster the state’s current access to abortion.

In Nebraska, voters chose to retain the legislation banning abortion after 12 weeks, rejecting a proposal that extended rights to 24 weeks.

And in South Dakota, some 60 percent of voters chose to pass a measure that would make it a felony to perform an abortion except to save the life of a woman.

But it was in Florida that the pro-choice majority felt their biggest defeat. Activists fought tooth-and-nail to pass a motion granting the right to choose up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. As it stands, women can only get an abortion until about 6 weeks in their pregnancy.

Despite garnering a clear majority at 57 percent, the measure needed 60 percent to pass.

The vicious bigots in the Republican Party—headed by hard right wing governor Ron DeSantis—poured about $100 million into the campaign to defeat the amendment.

It will have disastrous impacts, not just for women living in Florida but in the entire south eastern region of the US.

Desperate women have flocked there since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade was effectively overturned in 2022. Some 84,000 abortions took place in Florida last year—a 12 percent jump from 2020.

DeSantis said last year, “We don’t want to be an abortion tourism destination.” But abortions aren’t a luxury holiday or a cruise. Abortions are healthcare that save women’s lives.

The national result partly shows how women are not single-issue voters. Harris was counting on her timid promises to protect abortion rights, instead of offering genuine change for working class women.

It’s impossible to divorce the question of class from any serious analysis of the election. Most household budgets are controlled by women, and they are being absolutely hammered by rising costs and sinking wages.

Women aren’t just recipients of abortions or victims of sexual harassment. Women are as much part of the working class as men, and subject to the same pressures and experience similar hopes and dreams.

Abusers such as Trump should be rejected by the electorate—by both men and women.

It’s easy to feel so frustrated that women voted for someone who stands opposed to their material interests. But the same is true for all the working class men who voted for him. They also don’t benefit from abortion rights being rolled back.

The real question is what comes next. Are we going to see the worldwide protests that met Trump’s 2017 inauguration?

These Women’s Marches saw up to five million people march together against the misogyny of Trump and his regime.

That we have the same bigot for a second term shows that a one-day march, although hugely impressive, isn’t enough in and of itself to resist Trump.

Instead of being a standalone action, such a march should be a springboard for future resistance. We have to protest, strike and fight back like our lives depend on it—because for some of us, they do.