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Major wins last night for abortion rights spells huge victory for women's right to choose

The triumphs all came in states that could decide the 2024 presidential election.

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Gov. Wolf Stands Firm in Protecting Abortion Access in Pen… | Flickr

Since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 2022, abortion-rights advocates have made key victories in multiple ballot initiatives.

Tuesday, Nov 7 saw three major wins.

One being in Virginia, where voters flipped the house of delegates to a Democrat majority and effectively rejected a Republican effort to take full control of the state government, which would have included Glenn Youngkin’s proposed 15-week abortion ban.

Another victory for reproductive rights activists happened Tuesday night in Ohio, where abortion rights were enshrined into the state’s constitution by an overwhelming vote of nearly 60% in favor

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The ballot measure’s language guarantees every person in Ohio the right “to one’s own reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion,” and prohibits the state from “burdening, penalizing or prohibiting” those rights.

The amendment will essentially counteract the predominantly red state's “heartbeat bill” banning most abortions, which took effect immediately after the Dobbs decision but remains temporarily blocked.

This echoes a moment back in August when Kansas voters overwhelmingly struck down the “Value Them Both Amendment,” which would have removed key language that enshrined abortion rights in their state’s constitution.

And last and number three, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear won re-election in red state Kentucky after supporting abortion rights as a core message of his re-election campaign.

Abortion rights advocates marked Tuesday’s success as a sign that by and large, Americans desire for women to have freedom of choice.

President Biden wrote that it “makes clear what we know: the majority of Americans agree that women should have access to abortion and should have the right to make their own health care decisions.”


Meanwhile, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju said in a statement: "Reproductive freedom is a winning issue, now and in November. Anti-choice lawmakers take note: The voters have spoken, and they will turn out at the ballot box to oppose efforts to restrict reproductive freedom."

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With the upcoming presidential election in 2024, abortion rights seem destined to be a key issue. And while that might mean more narratives around it are construed to create political divides throughout our country, so far that hasn’t appeared to be the reality for most Americans—who, even in more conservative leaning states, actively support a woman's right to choose.

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This school showed the power of a simple name change when confronting a racist legacy.

This school is teaching an important lesson.

The last public building in Virginia's capital with a Confederate name is getting a makeover. Thanks, Obama.

On June 18, the Richmond School District voted 6-1 to change the name of J.E.B Stuart Elementary to Barack Obama Elementary.

Why does that matter?

Stuart was a U.S. Army officer who switched sides to join the Confederacy during the Civil War and became one of the South's top military strategists. Richmond school officials wanted to let go of inappropriately honoring a pro-slavery leader, and do so in a way that built bridges in the community.

"It's incredibly powerful that in the capital of the Confederacy, where we had a school named for an individual who fought to maintain slavery, that now we're renaming that school after the first black president," Richmond Public School Superintendent Jason Kamras said. "A lot of our kids, and our kids at J.E.B. Stuart, see themselves in Barack Obama."

The elementary school body is 95% African-American and a number of school leaders suggested swapping out Stuart's name for Obama's, echoing a similar move at a Mississippi elementary school in 2017.

The fight over replacing Confederate monuments has been divisive, but it doesn't have to be.

The name change in Richmond was also partially a response to the infamous white nationalist marches in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 in which one protester was killed and 19 others were injured during a contentious debate over a park named after the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Students were polled on how they would like to see the school renamed and school district officials discussed the issue before moving forward.

Even though the debate was mild, Obama himself might chuckle at the fact that he was only the student's third favorite choice, losing out in a school wide poll to the more generic "Northside Elementary" (named after the school's location) and "Wishtree Elementary" named after the popular children's book celebrating cultural diversity.

At the end of the day, any of those names would be a preferable alternative, but there's something wonderful about directly countering the Confederate legacy with one that tells a positive story about our nation's evolution on race.

America continues to grapple with public ties to our history of racism and oppression. This is a great step forward.

The debate over our complicated racial history isn't going away. We can't ignore our past, and wins like this are simple ways to bridge the divide.

It's time to move beyond honoring ideas and leaders who no longer reflect the values this nation holds dear.

Heroes

An evangelical scientist shows 'Full Frontal' how to talk to climate change doubters.

Fewer than half of Americans think climate change will pose a threat to their way of life within their lifetimes.

They should hear about Tangier Island.

The island, located in the Chesapeake Bay off the coast of Virginia's mainland, is quite literally sinking into the sea. Since 1850, its land mass has decreased by two-thirds, and scientific estimates suggest that within the next half century, it'll be completely uninhabitable.

Tangier Mayor James Eskridge insists that the real issue is erosion. Appearing at a CNN town hall with former Vice President Al Gore, Eskridge asked why he hadn't noticed any signs of rising sea levels — even as his island sinks into the sea.

On Tangier Island, however, Esktridge's view is far from uncommon.

"Full Frontal With Samantha Bee" correspondent Allana Harkin recently traveled to Tangier Island.

Along the way, she learned a few techniques for having productive conversations with climate change doubters.

Many of Tangier's residents are evangelical Christians, a group that is made up of some of the statistically least likely Americans to believe in man-made climate change. Some residents interviewed rolled their eyes at Harkin when she stated that she believed in things like climate change and evolution, and others suggested that even if climate change is real, it's fine because they'll be raptured away.

A Tangier resident named George has no interest in hearing what Al Gore has to say about climate change. All images via Full Frontal With Samantha Bee/YouTube.

Unable to get through to residents using conventional arguments, Harkin turned to Dr. Katherine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and evangelical Christian, for help.

"Just saying, 'Oh, God will take care of it' or 'It doesn't matter,' is actually a profoundly un-Christian perspective," said Hayhoe — who has a positive track record of getting through to doubtful evangelicals on this subject — in the segment. "In the Bible, it says God will destroy those who destroy the Earth."

When Harkin asked what steps she could take to convince those who dispute climate science on the basis of religious grounds, Hayhoe highlighted the importance of listening, not just lecturing, and asking for their stories.

"Rather than coming and in and saying, 'I know,' 'I'm gonna tell you,' 'You listen to me,' the place to start is by sharing from the heart: What is it that we have in common?"

Katherine Hayhoe delivers a talk on rebutting climate change denial among evangelicals.

With Hayhoe's advice in mind, Harkin revisited the first group, and, well, it went sorta kinda OK!

This time, instead of challenging their entire worldviews, Harken tried a different tactic. "Let me throw this out there, and we'll let it land. We won't even have to discuss it," Harkin said. "What if climate scientists are actually doing God's work?" The room was stunned into silence. You could practically see the exact moment the walls of distrust started to come down.

Addressing the question in a way that made sense with their view of the world elicited a stunned, thoughtful silence and some nods from the group. "He works through everybody," said one man. "Yeah, He can work through them," said another, nodding.

Harkin moderates a discussion among Tangier residents.

Though the segment ends without any converts to the side of truth, science, and not standing by as their island disappears forever, Harkin and the Tangier Island residents had an important conversation that could signal the first steps in saving the island from the effects of climate change.

Watch the "What's Happening to Tangier Island" segment from "Full Frontal With Samantha Bee" below.

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Trans woman Danica Roem beat her anti-trans opponent by focusing on ... roads. Seriously.

It turns out that if you run a campaign centered on real issues, people take notice.

"To every person who's ever been singled out, who's ever been stigmatized, who's ever been the misfit, who's ever been the kid in the corner, who's ever needed someone to stand up for them when they didn't have a voice of their own ... this one's for you," said Virginia delegate-elect Danica Roem during a fiery victory speech on Tuesday, Nov. 7.

Roem is a transgender woman, but her gender identity is secondary to the main issue she campaigned on: fixing Route 28.

"That's why I got in this race, because I'm fed up with the frickin' road over in my home town," she said to laughter and applause during the speech, calling on the state legislature to fix existing problems rather than creating new ones.

Roem's election makes her the first out transgender person who will be elected and seated in a state legislature. Photo by Danica Roem for Delegate.

Roem used her speech to highlight the importance of focusing on unifying issues like infrastructure, ensuring teachers get fair pay, working to expand access to health care, and finding cost-effective solutions to local problems.

"This is the important stuff," she told the crowd. "We can't get lost in discrimination. We can't get lost in BS. We can't get lost tearing each other down."

It's that view, that it's the government's job to address issues of infrastructure and public health, that set her apart from her opponent, incumbent candidate Bob Marshall. Marshall, the self-described "chief homophobe" of Virginia, is perhaps best known for introducing a so-called "bathroom bill" designed to discriminate against trans people. Seeing a politician so obsessed with his anti-LGBTQ views have his seat won out from under him by a trans woman just feels ... symbolic.

Oh yeah, did I mention Roem is alsoa singer in a heavy metal band?

Mailers sent out by her opponent's campaign before the election warned that "[His] defeat would signal that holding these [anti-LGBTQ] principles is a detriment to being elected."

Hopefully, Marshall is right about that. The people who represent us in government should represent all of us, and his defeat shows many voters aren't willing to put up with elected officials who don't see things that way.

In a recent interview on a right-wing radio show, Marshall showed his disdain for Roem and trans people, generally:

"It is not a civil right to masquerade your fantasies as reality. ... I’ve drawn a line. I’m not leaving it, because I don’t make the laws of nature but I think I understand them, at least at this fundamental level. I never flunked biology, so I’m not going to call a man a woman, period."

If a candidate wants to run on a platform of legislating trans people out of public existence or thinks it's OK accuse their political opponents of defying the laws of nature, that should be detrimental to their odds of being elected.

We need more candidates like Roem whose political ambitions revolve around how best to help their constituents.

This country belongs to all of us. As Roem said in her victory speech (which is excellent, and you should watch it below) with all the intensity of a seasoned politician:

"No matter what you look like, where you come from, how you worship, who you love, how you identify — and yeah, how you rock — that if you have good public policy ideas and you’re well qualified for office, bring those ideas to the table because this is your America too."

Just as it's not enough for Democrats to simply run on being not-Trump, perhaps this is a sign that it's not enough for Republicans to bank on voters hating the same groups as them. During the 2016 election, then-North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory ran hard on the state's anti-trans bathroom bill only to come up short; Marshall did the same in his race against Roem.

Maybe, just maybe, empathy is winning out, and maybe people are coming to understand that the purpose of government isn't to determine who to oppress, but how to help lift us all.

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