POLITICS
Public Television Fails the Public
PBS, Reproductive Rights, and the DNC
Like many middle-aged parents, I am part of a family group chat. Ours ranges from pun-worthy groans to debates about politics and law.
On Tuesday morning, I was surprised to see lukewarm comments about the first night of the Democratic National Convention. Often the killjoy in this chat, I got on my soapbox to defend what I thought was the most unique and important moment of the first night of the convention: raw stories about abortion, miscarriage, and rape. The only problem was that nobody has seen what I was talking about — because PBS — the Public Broadcasting System — chose to substitute punditry for news reporting. PBS made a choice that fundamentally undercut the Democratic party’s decision to take a unique stand on reproductive rights.
Abortion has been part of American presidential elections for many decades — but not as a strictly Democratic position. When seven justices affirmed abortion as a constitutional liberty right in Roe v. Wade, it had little to do with political party. Five justices were appointed Republican presidents (Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon) and two were picked by Democrats (Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson). The two dissenters were picked by John Kennedy (a Democrat) and Nixon (a Republican).
In 1980, the Republican presidential primary featured Ronald Reagan and Bob Dole (declaring against abortion) as well as George H.W. Bush presenting himself as a pro-choice Republican. The evolution of Republican opposition to abortion is complicated and Democrats were not always united in their support of choice as a central issue. In the last cycles, Republican candidates have promised to limit abortion while Democrats have underlined their support (though they too have evolved from Bill Clinton’s “safe, legal, and rare” to Harris’s more robust defense of choice).
The Dobbs decision changed this political landscape. Candidate Donald Trump promised to appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade and, since the Dobbs decision in 2022, Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for overturning Roe. In the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats deftly used the overturning of Roe and even Republican states like Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio passed referenda to protect reproductive choice. States will have reproductive rights on the ballot in November 2024 (AZ, AK, CO, FL, MD, MO, NE, NY, pending in MT and NV).
In this political context, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) made abortion central to the first night of their convention. Almost every speaker mentioned reproductive rights as one of the reasons to elect Kamala Harris as president (and down ballot candidates). Together, these elected officials told the delegates on the floor and viewers at home that the Republican party stood squarely against reproductive choice while the Democratic party would work to reverse the effects of Dobbs. Given the strategy since 2022, this was not unexpected.
But the DNC did something unique on the first night of the convention. They darkened the stage and dramatically highlighted the stories of four Americans. Party conventions often feature people who tell difficult stories about overcoming adversity. But I’m unable to find any example of a convention highlighting stories about miscarriage, abortion, and rape. Yet Democrats boldly chose to spotlight three graphic stories.
There were four speakers.
Although reproductive rights is often presented as a “women’s issue,” the DNC led with Josh Zurawski of Texas narrating how he feared that his wife Amanda Zurawski would die before doctors in Texas would treat her. He was explicit. They had lost a daughter they wanted and Amanda needed abortion care or she might die. Amanda Zurawski then laid out current statistics on who can access abortion care necessary for miscarriage and what would happen with a second Trump presidency. She concluded with a call to vote because “lives depend upon it.” She did not need to say it — but the setting made it clear that hers was one of those lives.
Next, Kaitlyn Joshua explained how she was turned away from two hospitals in Louisiana as she miscarried a child she and her husband desperately wanted. She mentioned her husband’s fear that he would lose her. She presented her story as representative of others — and also ended with the need to vote for Harris and Walz. The two women who miscarried were married — one Black, one white — from red states.
The last speaker, Hadley Duvall of Kentucky, introduced herself as an “all American girl”: cheerleader captain, soccer captain, home-coming queen, and survivor. The audience applauded her status as a survivor of rape by her step-father. Duvall took her first pregnancy test at 12 and she was told she had options. It was implied that she chose to have an abortion. Duvall said she could not imagine not having a choice — and that “Donald Trump’s abortion bans” took away that choice for many rape survivors today. Duvall said that Trump calls it a “A beautiful thing” but “what is so beautiful about a child having to carry her parents’ child?” There was an audible gasp.
In speaking about today’s survivors who don’t have options, Duvall said “We see you. We hear you” and she ended with the claim that Harris would fight for every woman and sign a national law to restore a national right to access abortion.
While it was not surprising that the Democrats would talk about reproductive rights, these testimonials were surprisingly raw and emotional. The floor of the convention is often loud and delegates are distracted (even during some of the biggest speeches) but lights were dimmed. This was a staged event and the Democrats intended these 6 minutes to say something different than Hillary Clinton or Raphael Warnock about reproductive rights.
I have no insight into why PBS — a trusted news source — would choose to pull away from the convention for these 6 minutes. There are important lessons to draw about gender and politics from the first night — and they are not nearly as clear without the DNC choice to highlight miscarriage, abortion, and rape. This convention can be viewed uncensored on C-Span and other networks made different editorial choices.
But I believe a key claim that Harris is making — that the Democrats are making down ballot as well — cannot be fully understood without these 6 minutes. I’ve written on how Kamala Harris has a unique approach to abortion that more boldly discusses the body and pregnancy as part and parcel of many Americans lives. This decision by PBC undercuts that message. We need to understand how punditry is shaping our perception of both the RNC and DNC but we also need to be sensitive to what the punditry replaces.
