Dr. Lauren Beene was still processing the election outcome when she spoke with Ms. magazine the morning after Donald Trump had been declared the winner of the 2024 presidential election. Beene, co-founder and vice president of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, had successfully led the fight a year ago to pass an amendment that enshrined the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. Yet Beene now worried that under Trump, a national abortion ban may be in the not-so-distant future, and Ohio’s win to protect abortion rights could be in jeopardy.
“Unfortunately, my understanding is that if there were a national abortion ban, then we would no longer have the protection that we currently have because of our state constitution,” said Beene.
Beene has good reason for concern. The Ohio state Supreme Court is now stacked with a GOP 6-1 majority after the election of three new justices who appear hostile to abortion rights, and who all were endorsed by Ohio Right to Life. The justices are expected to hear a challenge to the state’s abortion rights amendment in 2025.
The 2024 election also garnered seven new state referendums to protect abortion rights, including Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Montana, Nevada and New York. Voters in Missouri, the first state to enact a near-total abortion ban after the fall of Roe v. Wade, which carried no exceptions for rape and incest, have now overturned the first ban through a citizen-initiated ballot measure.
Dr. Jennifer Smith, an OB-GYN and abortion provider in St. Louis, and founder of the Missouri Healthcare Professionals for Reproductive Rights, was instrumental in building the broad coalition to overturn the ban, which she describes as extremely harsh, and that took a toll on the state’s healthcare providers and their ability to care for their patients.
“I think it will come out that in Missouri that we have had patients like Amber Thurman in Georgia who have had to leave the state to have an abortion, and who have had a delay in care and lost their lives. Those cases just aren’t known yet, but they are here,” said Smith.
In North Carolina, one of the battleground states won by Trump, Chavi Koneru, executive director of North Carolina Asian Americans Together (NCAAT), an advocacy organization that represents the fastest growing population in the state, and which endorsed Kamala Harris, now finds herself grappling with the changes the 2024 election brought to the state’s political landscape and what it means for the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.
One change, Koneru said is a group she encountered at polling sites: Asian MAGAS for Trump, according to their bright red shirts. Koneru said the group specifically targeted voters who appeared to be newer citizens or elderly voters less familiar with the process and with less comfort in going out to vote. Koneru said the group spoke in different languages, sometimes Mandarin, sometimes South Asian languages.
“It was everything from people being yelled about whether they were citizens, how they could sleep at night knowing that they were voting for someone who was allowing boys in girls’ locker rooms, questioning their parenting abilities …but their talking points or script was very much focused on education and the superintendent of public instruction race,” Koneru said.
“That’s something that we can anticipate and will see at the polls in future years,” she added.
Yet Koneru is proud of NCAAT’s work in this election cycle, including 184,000 doors that were knocked on, the 300,000 calls that were made and the more than one million mailers sent to voters.
“I think there is a lot of opportunity to work with the candidates who took the time to really get to know the Asian American community,” said Koneru.
That sentiment is also felt by Erin Erenberg, CEO of Chamber of Mothers, a national nonpartisan advocacy organization, advocating for affordable childcare, maternal health and paid family leave. Although Erenberg said she is flooded with emotions over the election outcome, she is enormously grateful and proud of the Chamber mothers.
“I am proud of our team for holding folks accountable and for really working on how to stay united, empathetic, curious and open. I think all those values and ways of being are going to be critical as we move forward,” said Erenberg.
Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.
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