Op-Ed: The Fight for Women’s Rights
Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota in March 2024 made her the first vice president to visit a clinic that provides abortions. (Photo: AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Kamala Harris had 107 days to create and run a presidential campaign, becoming the second woman — and the first South Asian and Black woman — to be a major party’s presidential nominee, following her past election as the first female, South Asian, and Black US vice president in 2020. Even before becoming vice president, Harris had an impressive career. She graduated from Howard University and the University of California Hastings College of Law. In 1990, she began working at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, specializing in prosecuting child sexual assault cases. In 2004, Harris was elected as district attorney of San Francisco and became a leader in the national movement for LGBTQ+ rights, officiating the first gay marriage in California. In 2010, she was elected attorney general of California, overseeing the largest state justice department in the nation. In 2017, Harris became a US Senator.
Yet, in a 2021 interview, JD Vance, now the incoming vice president, remarked that the US was 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,” adding that future of the Democratic Party was controlled by “people without children” like Harris, Pete Buttigieg, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Despite being highly educated, having served in all three branches of government, and holding the position of the second-most powerful person in the executive branch, is Harris’ contribution to society reduced to whether she has children? Does this reveal society’s tendency to belittle successful women based on gender? How deeply is misogyny intertwined in America?
The parallels between the 2016 and 2024 US presidential elections provide important context. In 2016, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee, while Vice President Harris held this spot in 2024. Clinton and Harris ran against — and lost to — the same Republican nominee: Donald Trump. Does this demonstrate the country’s reluctance to elect a woman as president?
During this election cycle, Harris faced significant developments in the political climate. On Jan. 6, 2021, the U.S. Capitol was attacked by Trump supporters who rejected the results of the 2020 presidential election. On July 13, 2024, in the swing state of Pennsylvania, Trump survived an assassination attempt. Additionally, Project 2025, a set of radically conservative proposals, is reportedly connected to the Trump administration.
Harris and Trump had different views on all major issues, but one of the most striking differences was on abortion. Harris campaigned on protecting a woman’s right to choose whether or not they want an abortion, while Trump declared, “Whether the women like it or not, I’m going to protect them.” During his first term, Trump appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, leading to the conservative-majority court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022 and ending the constitutionally protected right to abortion. Many states swiftly implemented abortion bans, stripping away women’s rights in the country. In contrast, Harris campaigned on supporting measures to reinstate Roe v. Wade if she became president.
In 2019, Ohio passed a law enacting a six-week abortion ban. In 2022, a 10-year-old girl who had been raped had to leave her home state of Ohio and travel to Indiana to receive an abortion at six weeks and three days pregnant. Is this what America has become? Forcing a traumatized 10-year-old to leave her state to access medical care?
Also in 2022, Amber Thurman, a nursing school applicant and mother to a six-year-old in Georgia, discovered she was pregnant with twins. Georgia had recently enacted a six-week abortion ban, so at nine weeks pregnant, Thurman made a four-hour drive to North Carolina to receive abortion care, where she took abortion pills and later suffered a severe reaction. She then returned to a hospital in Georgia, where it took 19 hours for doctors to decide to perform surgery to remove the fetal tissue, during which she died. In 2024, Thurman’s family learned that there was a “good chance” she could have survived if the surgery had been performed earlier. During an interview about Thurman’s death, her sister posed the question: if the United States of America is the land of the free, then “why aren’t women free to make their own decisions about their health?” Why do we need an elected official to decide how or when we should receive medical care? Is America’s promise of freedom a mirage?
Kamala Harris delivers her concession speech at Howard University on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (Photo: The New York Times/Erin Schaff)
On Election Day 2024, 10 states voted on abortion access, and seven of these states expanded access to abortions or lifted existing bans. In the other three states — Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota — attempts to expand abortion access failed, meaning restrictions and bans remain in place. South Dakota enforces a full abortion ban, Florida has a six-week ban, and Nebraska enforces a 12-week ban. When the Declaration of Independence stated that “all men are created equal” and have “certain unalienable rights,” it must have been referring strictly to men, as the nation has repeatedly failed women.
Since winning the 2024 presidential election, the incoming Trump administration is expected to pursue a federal abortion ban, which would override and invalidate state-level abortion protections. This ban could be implemented in various ways, even if Congress rejects it. The Comstock Act could be invoked to block the sale of abortion pills or the delivery of medical equipment used for abortions. An executive order could be issued to criminalize abortion and classify it as murder. So, with a Republican-majority Senate, a conservative Supreme Court, a Republican presidency, and likely a Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where is a system of checks and balances on government power?
Although the future of women’s rights in the United States seems grim, American women can look to their European counterparts for support. Patrick Harvie, a member of the Scottish Parliament since 2003, criticized the first minister of Scotland’s support for President-elect Trump. Harvie called Trump a “convicted felon,” a “misogynist,” a “climate denier,” a “fraudster,” a “conspiracy monger,” a “racist,” and a “far-right politician who tried to overturn an election result.” Additionally, in March 2024, France became the first country to make abortion a constitutional right. While America stumbles backward, Europe strides forward.
Amid the darkness, a glimpse of hope came from Harris’ concession speech, in which she declared that she would “never give up the fight for a future where Americans can pursue their dreams, ambitions, and aspirations. Where the women of America have the freedom to make decisions about their own body and not have their government telling them what to do.”
We must continue to peacefully fight for our freedom.