The personal is always political, and leading the best lives that we can often hinges on the governments we elect. As we enter the homestretch of 2020 and look to a new president and to newly elected officials to help us weather the many challenges the U.S. currently faces, we find ourselves contemplating: Where do we go from here? From the Covid-19 pandemic to climate change to racial justice and more — there are many big issues we must tackle as a nation. We asked nine thought leaders about how we can create a healthier America and how we move forward now.
The day we defeated Donald Trump, America cried, poured into the streets, banged on pots, rang church bells, and cow bells rang in Harlem. We popped bottles of champagne, set off fireworks, called our families, and cried some more. Pure collective joy.
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Now we’re here. We have the power and the mandate to demand more for our health care.
The Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the political arm of our organization that engages in activism, is going to fight hard to repeal the racist Hyde Amendment, which blocks people who rely on Medicaid from using their insurance to cover abortion. We’ll demand that the new administration nominates and appoints sexual and reproductive health champions to the cabinet — people who actually listen to scientists. We’ll fight to protect abortion access, especially with 18 cases just one step away from the Supreme Court, any one of which could determine the future of abortion access.
And while the country turns its eyes to the two Senate runoffs in Georgia, Planned Parenthood advocacy and political organizations will channel our joy into action and do everything we can to send more champions for sexual and reproductive health to the Senate. The bonus: We'll be making sure Mitch McConnell is never Senate majority leader again (if Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, two Democrats, win the Georgia runoffs, the Senate will return to Democratic control).
But even as we work to undo the damage of the Trump administration, depending on where you live or how much money you make, your ability to access abortion is already out of reach. It’s why our partners in the reproductive justice movement have long argued that we need to be talking about access, not rights: because a right without access is meaningless.
That’s what we saw in Georgia last week. Folks there had “the right” to vote, but it took John Lewis’s legacy, Stacey Abrams’s Fair Fight, Nse Ufot’s New Georgia Project, and so many others working to tear down all the barriers that stopped folks from exercising it. It took years of hard work to illustrate how votes matter, and how easily they can be taken away. Black voters in Georgia know this deep down — many still live in households with elders who had to take poll tests. In this election, democracy was on the ballot — and it won.
At the same time, we know that the electorate is deeply divided. Disagreements about the direction of our country persist on nearly every issue. But we also know that 77 percent of Americans don’t want to see Roe v. Wade overturned — and that support for reproductive freedom hasn’t always felt so partisan.
If you just look at the data of who benefits from access to sexual and reproductive health care: nine out of ten women will use birth control at some point in their lives. According to Pew Research Center, a majority of Catholic adults believe abortion should remain legal in most or all cases, as do a majority of both Black Protestants and white Protestants. So while some people may not be happy with the outcome of this election, Planned Parenthood Action Fund is working to expand their freedom, too. Because when we say everyone has the right to control their own bodies, we really do mean everyone.
If this election has taught us anything, it’s that we can expand the electorate that shows up for reproductive rights, as we saw in Colorado, where the voters rejected a 22 week abortion ban. Or Michigan, where Senator Gary Peters became the first sitting senator to publicly share a personal experience with abortion when he spoke to ELLE about a life-threatening medical emergency during his wife’s pregnancy that demanded she receive an abortion. The fetus had no chance of surviving a pregnancy and though his wife's life hung in the balance, her hospital refused to allow her physician to perform the procedure. The article was published in October of 2020, and after sharing the story, Peters held on strong to his seat in the Senate. That’s where our power comes from — from the broad coalition of people from all corners of this country who fundamentally believe that our bodies are our own.
Our collective power can grow exponentially, because we’re not alone in this movement, and we’re not free until everyone is free. When advocates for reproductive freedom join the Movement for Black Lives, and stand beside activists for gun safety, environmental justice, and health care — we’re looking at a hell of a lot of power.
More people voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris than literally any presidential candidate in the history of this country. Voter turnout was at its highest rate in 120 years. If that’s not a mandate for our rights and our health, I don’t know what is.
Since Trump took office, we’ve been saying that if we get to the other side — or make it to the morning — it would be because of movement work by Black, brown, LGBTQ+, and young activists. They’ve led fiercely and unapologetically. Now, we’re on the other side — and their winning coalition got us there. They flooded the streets to defend Black lives, then flooded the polls to elect Biden and Harris — and showed us just how powerful they really are. Now, they should get to exercise their power through policy.
Our movement, defending your rights, is powerful. We built it for our freedom. And we built it for your freedom too — even if you don’t support Planned Parenthood.
So let’s get free.
Alexis McGill Johnson is the president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. She previously served as Planned Parenthood Federation of America board chair, Planned Parenthood Action Fund board member, and Planned Parenthood Federal PAC chair.
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