Protecting Abortion, Electing Trump
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 12 November 2024
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Donald Trump’s position on abortion was opaque enough that even states that passed protections for abortion rights still voted for him by a large margin. But even if a national abortion ban—something JD Vance has spoken in favor of—is probably untenable politically, how else could the incoming administration restrict access to abortion across the country?
Guest: Caroline Kitchener, national reporter covering abortion for the Washington Post.
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme and Rob Gunther.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Since last week's election, there's been a whole lot of Monday morning quarterbacking |
| 0:11.7 | about what exactly went wrong for the Democrats. Did they fail to communicate the stakes |
| 0:18.9 | of this election? Were they to flip about the economy? |
| 0:23.9 | But I wanted to talk to Caroline Kitchener, |
| 0:26.9 | who covers abortion for the Washington Post, |
| 0:29.3 | because she didn't wait to understand how well the Dems were communicating |
| 0:33.2 | when it came to one of their signature issues. |
| 0:36.8 | Well, going into the election, I really wanted to know, like, is abortion going to be enough to sway people? |
| 0:42.6 | Is abortion actually going to be enough to change somebody's mind on the presidential race? |
| 0:49.1 | I actually started by looking for people that were really torn, you know, more independent or Republican-leaning |
| 0:56.5 | voters who cared about abortion rights and because of abortion were really torn. And I had a really |
| 1:02.2 | hard time finding people. What I did find a lot of were people that cared very deeply about |
| 1:08.6 | abortion rights, but who didn't really see that as connected to the |
| 1:12.3 | presidential race. And I thought that was really fascinating. |
| 1:17.5 | Looking back, Caroline's reporting seems prescient. She spoke with one voter after another, who said |
| 1:25.7 | they were all for abortion rights and the GOP, Trump in particular. |
| 1:32.7 | Take Emily Jones in Arizona. She was thrilled to mail in her vote early and felt strongly about preserving |
| 1:40.3 | the right to reproductive health care. You know, before the abortion bans took effect, she had an ectopic pregnancy. |
| 1:46.2 | And, you know, she did receive care that, you know, might be more difficult to get now if you're in a state with a ban. |
| 1:54.5 | And so she did care very deeply about this issue. |
| 1:57.2 | But she voted for Trump and she voted for the abortion rights ballot initiative, |
| 2:03.4 | both her and her husband, who I also spoke to, voted the same way. |
... |
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