Content Warning: This article contains references to sexual assault.
The Democratic Party is having a feminist field day. During her 2024 campaign for president, Vice President Kamala Harris was backed by a disproportionate percentage of women due to the importance of reproductive rights as a decisive policy issue. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump, who as of print time is set to win the election, fumbled through the issue during his campaign, searching for ways to escape his misogynistic reputation.
As a staunch supporter of abortion rights, I cheered alongside my peers for a Harris presidency, drawing political chalkings outside the dining hall and spam texting my friends encouraging them to vote. Nevertheless, the Democrats’ framing of their pro-choice platform leaves a sour taste in my mouth: For all the emphasis Democrats place on medical emergency cases, laws affecting in vitro fertilization (IVF) and exceptions for rape and incest, they have replaced the core issue of bodily autonomy with an appeal to conservative purity culture. This ideology preserves traditional gender roles under the guise of protection for women’s feminity and innocence. Instead, Democrats should recenter bodily autonomy to unconditionally value women’s rights, which will continue to be threatened in local politics regardless of the election’s outcome.
Referred to as edge cases, more shocking abortion circumstances are more commonly featured in abortion rhetoric than others. Harris’ campaign has prioritized edge cases of abortion needs in their pro-choice messaging, from an unsettling ad featuring a survivor of childhood rape to Harris’s repeated mentions of Amber Thurman’s death due to a restrictive Georgia abortion law. These individuals have undeniably been endangered and victimized by anti-abortion legislation, and their stories demonstrate the tremendous scope of lives affected by the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which stated that abortion is not protected under the Constitution. Despite the severity and memorability of these cases, however, such circumstances constitute only a fraction of abortions. The predominant reasons for abortion are personal ones: lack of financial preparation for a child, unsuitable timing — such as age and life stage — and partner-related issues. Campaign narratives avoid ordinary abortion stories because they are marked as unpalatable for election ads and not extreme enough to convince voters.
Although abortion edge cases deserve attention and can be rhetorically strategic, they play into the sexist idea that some people are more deserving of abortions than others. Pro-choice commercials present child-loving mothers who were forced to seek abortions for medical reasons and became tragically infertile from lack of treatment. They don’t typically describe young women who had a condom break during a tipsy one-night stand — these women would be labeled as careless, slutty and sinful, instead of unlucky or victimized. Edge cases masquerade in the shape of purity culture, valuing women who tick the checkboxes of a traditional evangelical sexual ethic — abstinence, meekness, innocence and contrition. Women who step out of line risk losing their femininity, and by extension, their humanity.
Americans can easily condemn the foreign extremities of purity culture, such as Afghanistan’s new law prohibiting women from singing and reading aloud in public due to the supposedly intimate quality of female voices. The Taliban’s defense for this oppressive law is grounded in women’s safety — laughable, yet oddly similar to obsessions with sexual purity echoed in the American consciousness. Memes about rifle-wielding fathers threatening their daughters’ boyfriends can be laughed off as an overdramatic but well-intentioned attempt to defend young women. However, it also hints at the outdated conception of young women as their father’s property and chastity as their measure of value.
Further, prospective mothers and couples using IVF fit nicely into purity culture’s image of a married woman — family-focused and child-rearing — which incentivizes Democrats to use their likeness in campaign ads. Victims of rape and incest, who have no agency over assaults or resulting pregnancies, also fit into this frame, not by representing purity and innocence, but rather by invoking pity for these would-be pure women who were victims of violent crimes. Such edge cases are strategic choices for anecdotes at rallies, like Thurman’s story and one of a Texan woman who went into sepsis. Backed by women’s rights advocates, these cases pull the heartstrings of purity worshippers who may regard the average abortion-seeker with disdain.
Edge cases of abortion appeal to what were undecided, anti-Trump Republican voters because of their alignment with conservative purity culture. However, it would be naive to suggest there are no detriments from the rhetoric employed by these ads. Surrounding Americans with messages that cater to purity culture validates an ideology that judges abortion with a medieval sexual ethic. Democrats pay lip service to bodily autonomy by abstractly mentioning “freedom,” but this falls short when stories of the average abortion-seeker are deemed too unpalatable for campaigns. No matter who assumes office, the Democratic Party must color outside the lines drawn by purity culture by unapologetically backing all forms of choice. Only through an unconditional affirmation of bodily autonomy can the party stand by the women it aims to support.
Contact Selena Teng at selena.teng@emory.edu.
If you or someone you know experienced sexual assault, you can access Emory’s Title IX resources at 404-727-0541 or https://equityandcompliance.emory.edu/title-ix/index.html and the Office of Respect at https://respect.emory.edu/ or their hotline 24/7 at (404) 727-1514. You can reach the RAINN National Sexual Assault hotline 24/7 at (800) 656-4673 or https://hotline.rainn.org/online. You can reach the Atlanta Grady Rape Crisis Center crisis hotline 24/7 at (404) 616-4861 or gradyrapecrisiscenter@gmh.edu and the Decatur Day League Sexual Assault Care and Prevention crisis hotline 24/7 at (404) 377-1428.
