You want to know why you should vote for Kamala Harris? It’s not because she’s a woman (though isn’t it time for a woman President?) It’s not because she’s super smart, a lawyer, or anything else. You should vote for her because she is the only candidate who wants women to have a say in their own medical decisions and lives. I know that sounds dramatic. The fight often sounds so simple. Either you believe in abortions or you don’t. But, the reality is far scarier and far more nuanced.
You don’t have to like abortions or even the idea of abortion because abortion bans are not actually about abortion at all. We need to be very clear here, abortion care isn’t just unwanted pregnancies. It encompasses a whole host of situations, including miscarriage. Procedures needed to ensure women don’t develop infections during miscarriage are abortion care. I know because I needed it 14 years ago. Dilation and curettage (D&C) is a standard procedure, a version of dilation and extraction (D&E) to remove miscarriages so that women do not develop infections and sepsis. It’s also the procedure most often used in elective abortions. The majority of abortion bans include clauses for women in danger of dying, but do not include specifics. According to The Guttmacher Institute, 33 states outlaw the specific procedure of D&E. Doctors, horrified by the thought of ending up in jail, and hospitals, worried about lawsuits, are forced to make decisions about whether a woman is sick enough, close enough to death, to get care. This is reality. Miscarriage care is abortion care. Abort simply means to stop, and a miscarriage is when a woman’s body stops her pregnancy on its own.
Abortion bans are not about abortion or about being pro-life. Pro-life would mean caring about women and babies (after they’re born, not just in-utero.) Pro-life would be ensuring children are fed because no child should ever go hungry, for any reason. These laws exist to control women. Men are realizing, though they’re unwilling to acknowledge it, that women no longer need men to live a full life.
So many men are scared and angry. There are higher percentages of women going to, and graduating from, college and university. Single women are outpacing men in home ownership. And, the number of women-owned small businesses outpaces men-owned businesses. So many men are terrified because they can no longer cling to the outdated tropes that women don’t make good leaders or are too emotional. These are facts, and they’re indisputable. They can’t control women’s careers like they’d prefer, so they must find different methods of controlling women. Behold the modern American red herring of so-called pro-life movement. They say one thing while doing something totally different. They say that they want to protect the unborn when the reality is that they want to restrict women’s abilities to make decisions about their own lives. They want to turn women into breeding vessels so men don’t actually have to compete with women or get better. They don’t want to be held to the same standards as they hold women.
So where did I get the stats in the above paragraph? Are they from partisan sources? No, they’re not. Let’s get into it. We’ll start with the first claim that more women are going to and graduating from institutions of higher learning.
The American Institute for Boys and Men says there are now 2.4 million more women than men undergraduates at in U.S. colleges and universities. They also say it’s due largely to stagnating male enrollment in four-year institutions. The gap exists when it comes to graduation from college. Approximately 54% of women in undergraduates will complete college while the rate falls to 43% for men. Pew Research Center has some insights about why people do not complete their degree at four-year institutions. Many cite financial reasons, but the about one-third of men surveyed said they just didn’t want to versus one-fourth of women. And Forbes.com summarized data from a variety of sources, including the Chronicles of Higher Education, the Brookings Institution, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that all support this thesis. In 2022, in every single state, women’s graduation rates from four-year institutions was higher than that of men.
There’s a gender gap in home ownership as well. Lendingtree.com published an article in January 2024 analyzing the data. Single women own 2.71 million more homes than single men. Single women own 10.95 million homes while single men own 8.24 million. The gap among married households, while still favoring men-led households, has decreased significantly. A recent study from the Urban Institute shows the rates of home ownership by women-led households has increased to 63%, just five percentage points below men. By comparison, this gap was 20 percentage points in 1990.
And finally, the number of women-owned businesses increased at nearly double the rate of their men-owned counterparts, with Black and Latina women entrepreneurs emerged from the pandemic stronger than all women-owned employers, according to a January 2024 report from Wells Fargo. The report also says that from 2019 to 2023, women-owned businesses’ growth rate outpaced the rate of men’s 94.3% for number of firms, 252.8% for employment, and 82.0% for revenue.
Women’s impact on the economy should not be ignored. Women are leading and contributing to the our country’s society in record numbers. We are doing great, important things that move the United States forward! Abortion bans are meant to hinder women’s growth. They exist because many men can’t stand seeing these stats. They don’t want to admit that women are outpacing men in so many areas of adult life. Please don’t ignore these numbers. Don’t ignore that women are doing great things, including having families and being mothers. Please don’t allow our country further weaken women’s rights by electing Donald Trump to a second term. He is the wrong choice for many reasons, but a huge one is that he dislikes, and infantilizes women. He’s made it clear that he believes women are inferior to men in every way. The numbers prove that he’s wrong. Believe in yourself, believe in other women, and believe that this country is ready to be led by a competent, smart, and level-headed woman. Choose joy! Choose Kamala Harris and Tim Walz!
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