270 Reasons: Because Kamala Harris Can Say the Word “Abortion”

Our friends at 270 Reasons are gathering a polyphonic orchestra of brilliant writers, teachers, doctors, filmmakers, artists, and citizens of all kinds to weigh in about their plans to vote this November. These opinion essays run the gamut from advocacy for basic human rights to acutely personal mini-manifestoes. Read the rest over at 270 Reasons.

Because Kamala Harris Can Say the Word “Abortion”
by Lauren Groff

I am voting for Kamala Harris because I want a president who can say the word “abortion.” I want a president who knows that all genders are inherently equal, but that deeply ingrained misogyny and societal structures make it so much harder to be a person born with a uterus. I want a president who knows that abortion is a safer medical procedure than a tonsillectomy, and that it is a necessary and very basic medical procedure that should be widely and easily available so that an unwanted pregnancy can be terminated as early as possible. When abortion is legal and safe and inexpensive and easy to get, almost all people who elect to get them do so nearly as soon as they discover they are pregnant.

I want widespread and easy abortion access because I am a mother. My two sons are the most beautiful humans I’ve ever met, and we yearned for them before they came. And yet, even with an extraordinary social and family network, with enough money for more than the basic necessities of life, with my privilege that I do not take for granted, becoming a mother nearly killed me. Pregnancy, in which my babies took the calcium from my teeth and bones, and drove me to a depression so deep I’m still terrified by the darkness of that time, was utterly grueling. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Just kidding! I’d wish it on Donald Trump and JD Vance, but just for a month or so, so they would understand how horrific it is to force underage girls, girls who have been raped, girls who are the victims of incest, to carry deeply unwanted fetuses for ten months. Being the mother of babies and toddlers was, if anything, even harder than pregnancy. It was a long waking nightmare with glimmers of joy, and I am relieved every single day now that my children are magnificent teenagers.

Being a parent is the gravest responsibility a human can take on. It should never be taken as lightly as the antiabortion crowd takes it. A government that forces its citizens to give birth contrary to their will is a government that is using its citizens like livestock. I’ve watched with revulsion and despair as the right wing erodes the fundamental human right to control one’s own body.

We must do better. With Kamala Harris in the White House, I believe we will.

Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and a New York Times best-selling author. She has won The Story Prize, the ABA Indies’ Choice Award, France’s Grand Prix de l’Héroïne, and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Read more essays (with new ones added every day) at 270reasons.com.

The arguments here represent the opinion of the authors and not necessarily those of the McSweeney’s Literary Arts Fund.