Women Want 2024 Election Results to Deliver Reproductive Justice

Posted May 30, 2024

Surrounded by states banning nearly all abortions, its legalization in New México has made the state a top place to travel for the procedure and a new poll showed it could be a defining issue in the November election.

Results from a coalition of civil rights groups found women of color said politicians who want to earn their vote need to focus on reproductive justice plus the issues of affordable health care, gun violence prevention and racism.

Lupe M. Rodríguez, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, said many women of color are energized to participate in the election.
“With Latinas and other women of color, we’ve seen their power as a voting bloc on this issue in recent elections,” Rodríguez pointed out. “Voters of color — and including Latinos — are rejecting abortion bans and attacks on their freedom.”

Voters of color — and including Latinos — are rejecting abortion bans and attacks on their freedom.”
Lupe M. Rodríguez, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice

The poll found nearly nine in 10 women of color say voting in the 2024 election is extremely or very important. It was conducted by a coalition of civil rights groups called “Intersections of Our Lives.”

The poll also found 93% of Black women, 84% of AAPI women and 79% of Latinas agree with the statement “racism has gone on too long,” and policies to advance racial equity are long overdue.

Regina Davis Moss, president and CEO of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, said the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning the decades-old constitutional right to abortion is still reverberating.

“One of the things that’s so different from 20 years ago is, so many things are not different from 20 years ago,” Davis Moss emphasized. “We should have made more progress. We should not be looking at taking away rights. And so, the more things change, the more they stay the same, and that is absolutely unacceptable to women of color.”

Over a 15-month period ending in June 2023, the Guttmacher institute found the number of abortions in New México increased by 220% with many patients coming from Texas, where it is mostly banned.

Roz Brown is a Producer with Public News Service.