CNN’s United Shades of America host W. Kamau Bell wore a shirt that said “I will aid and abet abortion” during a special episode on “Critical Race Theory” on Friday.
I sure will! ✊🏿
Get your @ShoutYrAbortion shirt here: https://t.co/xgJ3MO31AOhttps://t.co/D7F6Hm0O3H
— W. Kamau Bell (@wkamaubell) July 8, 2022
“I know I’m competing with President Biden. So I just want to make sure people know where I stand on a woman’s right to choose,” Bell said, according to TownHall.
Even as President Joe Biden signed an executive order giving women limited rights to some medical care in states where abortion is illegal, Biden acknowledged there wasn’t a lot he could do without congressional action.
Biden urges votes
“If you want to change the circumstance for women, and even little girls in this country, please go out and vote,” Biden said.
Responding to complaints from the left that the White House wasn’t acting enough on abortion rights, he said, “Let me be clear. While I wish it had not come to this, this is the fastest route available. The fastest way to restore Roe is to pass a national law codifying Roe, which I will sign immediately upon its passage on my desk.”
“We need two additional pro-choice senators and a pro-choice House to codify Roe as federal law. Your vote can make that a reality,” Biden added.
The Senate has not been able to overcome the filibuster with Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) objecting to the rule change. If Democrats were able to keep a majority in the House and gain two seats in the Senate, they could change the filibuster either permanently or do a carveout for an abortion rights bill.
Uphill battle
Fortunately, it will be difficult for Democrats to make any gains in the current political climate, in which Biden has dismal approval ratings and Republicans are ahead on the generic ballot. Traditionally, the party out of power gains seats in the first midterm after a presidential election.
While the overturning of Roe V. Wade did make abortion a state matter rather than a federal one, it did not take away any rights per se.
The left still proceeded to go over the deep end, however, and claim that women were losing all of their reproductive rights without Roe.
In New York City where Bell works, he doesn’t need to worry much about women’s abortion rights, for instance, because they have and will likely continue to have nearly unrestricted access to the procedure.
Still, it makes for good talking points and a way for desperate Democrats to try to get more votes, even if a recent poll showed that only 5% of people thought abortion was the most pressing issue right now.