Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders travelled to Nebraska to campaign for Omaha mayoral candidate Heath Mello - a Democrat who voted repeatedly in the state legislature to take away the rights of women by restricting abortion access . During his tenure in the state legislature, Mello sponsored, co-sponsored, or voted for several anti-choice measures, including a ban on abortion after 20 weeks gestation; a measure requiring doctors to offer an ultrasound to patients seeking an abortion; and a law banning Nebraska’s insurance plans from covering abortion.
To put it bluntly: Mello is not an advocate for women’s rights. So much so, that a leading anti-abortion group, Nebraska Right to Life, endorsed him in 2010. And yet, despite going against the Democratic Party’s stated values, Mellow received an endorsement from leaders of the Party.
When groups like NARAL Pro-Choice America and UltraViolet demanded the DNC clarify their position - Tom Perez, the newly elected chair of the party, distanced himself and the DNC from Mello’s troubling anti-woman positions.
But Senator Bernie Sanders, despite being pro-choice, reiterated his support for Mello explaining that: “...we have got to appreciate where people come from, and do our best to fight for the pro-choice agenda. But I think you just can't exclude people who disagree with us on one issue.”
One issue.
Sanders’ basic lack of understanding about the impact that reproductive rights and access have on women across every aspect of their lives is stunning, especially coming from someone who touts progressivism as the foundation of their political beliefs. His statement is also a troubling indicator of how deeply some Democrats misjudge the extent to which women will determine the fate of our party’s future.
The truth that Bernie Sanders, DNC, and anyone who agrees with him must understand is that the new Democratic Party cannot and will not be built off of extreme anti-woman views like those of Heath Mello. Women are at the forefront of the progressive resistance to the Trump administration throughout the country, and the Democratic Party cannot abandon these leaders by supporting officials who believe that issues like abortion and women’s economic security are mutually exclusive, regardless of their populist economic views.
Abortion access is not an issue we can afford to put on the back-burner of the Democratic Party platform. Economic security for women is directly linked to family planning, and if you leave out women by denying them the ability to make decisions about their own bodies, or enact laws designed to shame women or increase barriers to abortion access, then you are simply not progressive.
Access to safe, affordable healthcare is critical for the economic stability and security of all women, especially women of color.
The reality is that Senator Sanders has never truly acknowledged abortion as an intersectional issue. In 2015, during an interview with Rolling Stone, and in several debates and interviews since, Sanders has articulated abortion as a squarely social topic. Abortion isn’t a “single issue” or “social issue,” it is an issue that impacts women throughout their lives. This is key to our values as progressives.
This is not just a fight for the future of the Democratic Party, this is a fight about women’s lives:
- Nearly 70 percent of women who obtain abortions live below 200% of the federal poverty line, often because they cannot afford to care for a (or another) child.
- Women who are denied abortions are three times more likely to be below the poverty line just two years later, according to a 2015 report from the Reproductive Health Technologies Project.
- Those who oppose public funding for abortion call it an unfair burden on taxpayers. However, according to the Guttmacher Institute, funding restrictions on abortions cost taxpayers millions of dollars every year, due to the much higher cost of prenatal care and childbirth, and the secondary costs of unplanned births.
In 2014, 49% of abortion patients had a family income below the federal poverty level. An additional 26% of abortion patients in 2014 had an income that was 100–199% of the poverty threshold. In other words, 75% of abortions in 2014 were among low-income patients - and proposals like a ban on insurance plans that cover abortion, when coupled with Medicaid’s near-total ban on abortion coverage, means women who do not have expendable income are pushed into bearing children.
As Democrats come together to rebuild the party, let’s not forget that women are a driving force pushing for a more progressive agenda.
From Georgia’s 6th district to Kansas’ 4th district, Democrats are building power, and they’re doing it with pro-women leadership. Jon Ossoff, the Democratic candidate in Georgia’s 6th district, credited women with fueling his campaign, explaining to MSNBC: “The thousands of volunteers and organizers, so much of it led by women who have been pounding the pavement and knocking on doors for months here in Georgia, and it’s that kind of grassroots momentum that will carry us to victory on June 20.” In Kansas, James Thompson nearly won in a heavily red district with little DNC support and staunchly pro-choice values.
But all of this momentum cannot exist when politicians like Heath Mello do not trust women to make their own informed medical decisions.
With so much at stake, the Democratic National Committee and Senator Sanders should not be investing their time and resources in anti-abortion politicians—sacrificing the values of the party for little political gain. Democrats should embrace economic populism and provide solutions to working men and women across the country, but any economic populism that fails to understand the links between reproductive health choices and family economic security is not based in reality.
Women are watching, Bernie. Don’t let us down — the future of this country depends on it.