Donald Trump’s Victory Shows UK Abortion Rights Are Not as Secure as You Think

Donald Trump is set to re-enter The White House on a majority mandate granted primarily by economics-focused voters. But voting on economic issues is a luxury when your bodily autonomy is on the table.

Swing state polling by NYT/Siena College, showed that men listed the economy as their top voting issue while women ranked abortion as an equal priority. For women under 45 (in other words, people who might need abortions) abortion was the single most important voting issue.

The result was a whopping 24-point gender gap in how young men and women cast their ballots. This was even starker for ethnic minorities who are disproportionately affected by abortion restrictions: just 7% of Black female voters chose Trump.

So yes, Trump will re-enter the White House on a majority mandate. But not a mandate from women. The women’s vote, he lost – but that will not revoke his power to control their bodies.

Trump’s lack of support from women was predicted, even exaggerated, by pollsters. But rather than seeking to reassure women in response, the Trump campaign targeted new groups of male voters who often do not cast a ballot at all.

Early exit polling indicates Trump succeeded in his ‘bro vote’ quest, which took him from livestreams with 23-year-old YouTubers to multiple millennial men’s podcasts. If you’re picturing Trump waltzing on stage to “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” while wrestler Hulk Hogan rips off his shirt and rapper Kid Rock thrusts his fist in the air… then yes, that is exactly what courting the ‘bro vote’ looks like.

Credit should of course be given to any democratic campaigner who encourages new voters to register. But democratic integrity is a questionable motive for a man whose campaign adviser said wives voting for Kamala Harris “undermine their husbands”, and whose own final campaign message was: “I want to protect the women of our country … whether the women like it or not.” Which sounds a lot like kidnapping.

The ‘bro vote’ quest went beyond touting masculinity to fully degrading women. Trump tried to dissuade voters from backing Harris on the grounds she would get “overwhelmed” and “melt down” in the face of male authoritarian leaders.

Trump (who has had at least 28 allegations of sexual assault made against him) repeatedly reshared social media posts depicting Harris pornographically, while a speaker at his rally likened her to a prostitute whose “pimp handlers will destroy our country”. “B*tch!,” Trump goaded his audience to shout of former house speaker Nancy Pelosi; “Kamala Harris is a C- Word,” blared a campaign ad by his pal Elon Musk’s PAC.

Given this political climate, one must wonder what truth there is to this statement by the National Organization of Women: “Kamala Harris’ campaign didn’t fail; voters failed Harris. This result was not a reflection of her ability to lead but of voters’ ability to trust women.” BBC News’ pre-election vox-pops offered insight into ‘average American voters’: “America’s just not ready for a lady president,” one man said.

If elected, Harris would have been the first female president in US history. She has consistently fought for women’s reproductive rights and is the only VP or president to ever to visit an abortion clinic.

Trump, by contrast, has bragged about his role in overturning Roe v. Wade since he followed through on his 2016 promise to appoint “pro-life” Supreme Court justices that could swing the vote.

In 2022, they revoked a right women had held since 1973, all without a public majority. Since then, 22 states have introduced abortion restrictions, 14 almost total bans.

It may reassure readers that, alongside the general election on Tuesday, 10 states held abortion referendums on their ballots and eight delivered majorities in favour of increasing reproductive rights.

Yet as the overturning of Roe v. Wade demonstrated, when a powerful minority seeks to control, they do not need public agreement.

In Republican Florida, the 57% majority vote was not enough to meet the 60% threshold that had been required to change the law, no doubt to the glee of Governor Ron DeSantis, who used state resources to persuade voters to vote “no”.

As women watching what is happening in the US, we could resign ourselves to relief: we are here, not there.

But UK reproductive rights are not as secure as many think. Except for under specific conditions, abortion is illegal in England and Wales.

Those conditions lie beyond individual women’s control, including sign-off from two doctors who can refuse on religious grounds. The legal framework is literally Victorian, and means “women can still face up to life imprisonment for ending their own pregnancy from the moment that a fertilised egg implants into the womb” – as Catherine O’Brien, Associate Director at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, explained on Media Storm podcast.

Several amendments were tabled in UK Parliament this year to impose new abortion restrictions on women.

Resigning ourselves to relief would also ignore clear patterns of influence emitting from the US. While actual prosecutions under the UK’s anti-abortion law were once very rare, with just three convictions between 1861 and 2022, suddenly – beginning the very same year the US overturned Roe v. Wade – six women were charged within months.

Articles portrayed this as an unexplained rise in prosecutorial appetites, as if it happened in a vacuum. But British investigative journalists have exposed direct channels of funding between ultraconservative US lobbies and UK anti-abortion organisations. 

Many powerful men still sit in rooms legislating what women can do with their bodies, often under the guise of religion. But as then Senator Harris demanded of Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s second “pro-life” Supreme Court nominee: “Can you think of any laws that give government the power to make decisions about the male body?” He could not.

We stand with women of the US and pray their rights over their bodies are not about to suffer further. We stand with women of Iran, who are being detained daily for unveiling their heads. We stand with women of Afghanistan, who, since the Taliban takeover, have lost freedoms as basic as speaking loudly and looking at men they don’t know.

Our takeaway from the US election is this: if you have the luxury of voting on any grounds other than your own basic rights, vote for the people who do not.

Media Storm’s episode: ‘Abortion post Roe v Wade: How safe are UK reproductive rights?’ is available wherever you get your podcasts.