Trump did a lot to roll back women’s health care—from enacting a global gag rule, which prevents non-American health organizations from receiving monetary aid from the U.S., to stacking the courts with anti-choice judges all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. Add the threat of losing Roe to the mix and Biden will have his work cut out for him after he takes office in January.
Should he appoint a “women’s health czar?” Molly Jong-Fast asks Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, in this members-only bonus episode of The New Abnormal.
She was half-joking, but also serious. Hogue is all for it.
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“It would send such a clear message that that terrible era that Trump ushered in is over,” she says. But even so, it won’t be over just yet. Hogue says reproductive rights “absolutely could” be taken away and that the organization is even preparing for the possibility.
“A lot of our work over the last few years has been about making sure that we have what we call ‘islands of access,’ [like] Blue States that are codifying the right to abortion, making sure that we have like practice in place where women can go,” she says.
In the meantime, Molly asks her what Biden should do as soon as possible when it comes to the anti-choice legislation in place from the Trump/Pence era (which, by the way, is not driven by morality, says Hogue, but by control).
“It has always been about targeting women and women of color. And it's always been about forcing women to adhere to a very narrow period view of where they think our role in society is,” she says.
To combat it, Biden can start by rescinding the global and domestic gag rule, and appoint people who believe in science. Even then, the key is to not get complacent, lookin’ at you white women: “We have to rebuild the muscle that any time we are not fighting for something, we are losing it any time.”
Listen to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.
