Podcast / See How They Run / Aug 17, 2024

Can Kamala Harris Really Affect the Fight for Abortion Rights?

On this episode of See How They Run, Regina Mahone on how the Democrats’ approach to reproductive freedom has changed post-Biden—and how it hasn’t.

The Nation Podcasts
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Can Kamala Harris Really Affect the Fight for Abortion Rights? | See How They Run
byThe Nation Magazine

On this episode of See How They Run, Regina Mahone on how the Democrats' approach to reproductive freedom has changed post-Biden—and how it hasn't.

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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to the media after touring Planned Parenthood, with Gov. Tim Walz and Planned Parenthood North Central States Chief Medical Officer Sarah Traxler, MD, on Thursday, March 14, 2024, in St. Paul, MN.

(Glen Stubbe / Star Tribune via Getty Images)

Ever since the Dobbs decision, the fight for abortion rights has galvanized Democratic voters like nothing else. But in Joe Biden, the party had a presidential candidate who appeared tentative, uncomfortable, and out of touch with the reproductive justice movement. He could barely even say the word “abortion.”

Now that Kamala Harris, an enthusiastic defender of abortion rights who has led her party’s post-Dobbs response, has replaced Biden at the top of the 2024 ticket, there is a sense that reproductive freedom can once again take its place at the center of the Democratic campaign.

But how much has the approach to abortion really shifted post-Biden? On this episode of See How They Run, we’re joined by Regina Mahone, Nation senior editor, author of the Repro Nation newsletter, and the coauthor of Liberating Abortion: Claiming Our History, Sharing Our Stories, and Building the Reproductive Future We Deserve, which will be published on October 1 and is available for preorder now.

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The Nation Podcasts

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D.D. Guttenplan

D.D. Guttenplan is a special correspondent for The Nation and the former host of The Nation Podcast. He served as editor of the magazine from 2019 to 2025 and, prior to that, as an editor at large and London correspondent. His books include American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F. Stone, The Nation: A Biography, and The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority.

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