Here's how the loss of reproductive rights ultimately could help fight ... - Baltimore Sun

Here’s how the loss of reproductive rights ultimately could help fight climate change | READER COMMENTARY

One of the potentially most significant political events in the fight to save the planet from climate change has come from an unexpected direction: the battle over reproductive rights.

When the six Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, they gave a green light to states with Republican-controlled legislatures to pass long-planned laws drastically restricting access to abortion. For example, in Texas, all abortions are now illegal except for those intended to protect the life of the mother. After 50 years of federal protection for reproductive rights, this sudden loss of individual autonomy is serving as a political wake-up call to many citizens and most especially to young women.

In the United States, voting by young women (and young men) is generally at abysmally low levels. In the 2022 election, only 30% of 18-29 year-olds voted. Despite this low turnout, their impact in close elections was substantial. In Pennsylvania, the only state where a U.S. Senate seat flipped parties in 2022, 70% of the 18-29 year-olds who voted cast their ballots for John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate who won the election with 51% of the vote. In a Senate that is almost evenly divided along party lines, gaining or losing a single seat can be decisive.

Based on data from the Edison Research National Election Poll conducted shortly after the November 2022 election, 72% of 18-29 year-olds believe that abortion should be legal some or all of the time. When asked to prioritize the significance of crime, abortion, inflation, gun policy and immigration in their voting decisions, 44% of 18-29 year-olds chose abortion as the number one issue. Inflation was a distant second at 21%. No other age group chose abortion as the number one issue.

Since the divide between Democratic and Republican positions on reproductive rights correlates almost perfectly with the divide over climate change policies (as well as other issues such as gun control), votes cast on the basis of one of these issues will lend support to candidates with predictable views on the other issues. In what would surely be one of the most ironic instances of the law of unintended consequences, decades from now we may recognize the rollback of Roe v Wade as a turning point in the electoral balance of power and the fight to save the planet ( ”Biden looks to provide relief from extreme heat as record high temperatures persist across the US,” July 27).

— Jeremy Nathans, Baltimore

The writer is a professor of molecular biology and genetics at the Johns Hopkins Medical School.

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