This New York Times guest column caught my attention, both because I’m a long-time admirer of Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo blog, but more importantly because he defines a concrete, achievable path to defending abortion rights that also recognizes the galvanizing potential of this issue in the midterms. Reviewing recent polling that shows, if anything, increasing public support for abortion rights in the wake of the leaked Supreme Court draft essentially overturning Roe v. Wade, Marshall praises Democratic plans to make abortion rights a defining issue in November, but notes that the party will fail to motivate the public without offering a concrete plan to actually defend these rights.
Marshall argues that the Democrats need to present the public with a defned path to solidifying abortion rights, writing, “get clear public commitments from every Senate Democrat (and candidate for Senate) not only to vote for the Roe bill in January 2023 but also to change the filibuster rules to ensure that a majority vote would actually pass the bill and send it to the White House for the president’s signature [. . .] And that is the party’s message that makes the 2022 midterms a referendum on Roe: “Give us the House and two more senators, and we will make Roe law in January 2023.” What’s striking about his recommendation is that it calls for the voting public to exert pressure now on their elected representative to pledge abortion action should the Democrats hold the House and increase their Senate majority by the requisite two or three seats (to overcome the intransigence of Senators Kristen Sinema and Joe Manchin towards any necessary filibuster reforms). The notion of the public placing pressure on Democratic representatives has been a missing piece from much political opining in the days of the Biden administration. Marshall’s call for it here is, I think, recognition of a broader phenomenon — that the Democratic Party leadership will simply not defend basic rights, and rally the base with sufficient urgency, unless it receives an overwhelming message from the base to do so.
The impending demise of abortion rights may be the ultimate example of this Democratic Party lethargy. I agree with Marshall that the party owes the American public a plan to defend abortion rights. The bodily autonomy of American women is both a basic tenet of the Democrats and a non-negotiable American right, and for both reasons the Democrats must not only prioritize the issue but actually demonstrate a way to resolve it. If the Democrats won’t make a stand on this issue, what will they make a stand on?
On the abortion issue, as with others, I fear that part of what’s holding Democratic leaders back from making concrete promises is concern over ruffling party unity by forcing a handful of senators and representatives into losing any room to maneuver on abortion rights. Alongside this, it seems plausible that the Democrats are also wary that such a law would be quickly overturned by the Supreme Court (a concern that Marshall rightly dismisses as a self-inflicted party paralysis), which would prompt an immediate reckoning as to whether the Democrats should prioritize Court expansion.
In other words, the common sense of Marshall’s recommendation helps us understand how eager the Democratic Party leadership is to avoid reckonings and confrontation, both among party members and with the GOP, that they view as dangerous to the party’s prospects. But abortion rights are rights well worth risking a reckoning over; the lack of a necessary fight would be more dangerous than actually doing everything humanly possible to defend these rights, as it would certainly demoralize the rank and file, as well as inevitably lead to inter-party fights the party ostensibly wants to avoid. The future of the Democratic Party lies in the expansion of basic human rights, not in their constriction or evisceration, and anyone in Democratic leadership who does not grasp this should probably not be part of the leadership.