Yesterday at my local supermarket I bought a dozen large eggs. The least expensive carton cost $4.69, about double the price two years ago. Which got me to thinking, the coming election will be decided by which pain affects voters to a greater degree—the pain in the wallet for a dozen eggs or the insidious pain to a woman’s womb as Republicans try to control all aspects of a fertile woman’s egg-producing years.
Which reality will motivate voters? Today’s egg prices, or tomorrow’s “Handmaid’s Tale” future?
Inflation is only part of the reason egg prices are up. Another outbreak of bird flu has shrunk supply, spiking prices. Yet, that reality will barely penetrate the psyche of voters who choose to blame Democrats for inflation.
Eggs of a different kind—the kind that can be transformed into human embryos—are at the center of the debate over reproductive freedom, the origin of when life begins, the status of equal rights for women, along with access to quality, affordable maternity and child care.
Without giving details of his programs Donald Trump promises a utopia of lower regulation, lower taxes, lower prices, lower inflation, better health care, more empowered women, lower crime, higher tariffs to stimulate more American manufacturing jobs, fewer immigrants, massive deportation of illegal migrants, expansive child care, and an end to international wars.
He is beyond loose on specifics on how he would achieve those goals, especially ones that require congressional action, such as providing better health care. He does not address how consumers could see lower prices if immigrant and migrant labor is sharply reduced on farms and in food processing plants, how home costs could go down without their presence in the construction industry, how landscaping and home cleaning/maintenance jobs could be filled. Trump ignores history and the view of economists that tariffs drive prices up for consumers and, if too high, could result in retaliatory tariffs or cancelled trade.
Kamala Harris, meanwhile, has not “dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s” in her multi-pronged economic stimulation program, either. Her plans, as well, depend upon a compliant legislature. But her keynote appeal revolves around healthcare, specifically women’s reproductive rights.
On the economy people have no or little comprehension of why prices go up, or down. They just blame a current administration for a lousy economy even if it was inherited. Thus, too few Americans have given Joe Biden props for what he did to salvage the economic shambles left by Trump.
So Harris has to change the narrative away from the economy to reproductive rights and other medical issues that affect women and their families. She also has to emphasize how Trump and JD Vance are bullies and liars which women/mothers find repulsive. It doesn’t hurt her cause that Ohio’s Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno and North Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson reinforce the GOP’s outrageous positioning toward women.
Women, especially black women, college coeds and yes, women over 50, will be key to a Harris victory.
At the same time, let’s be clear that it is in the best interests of men to support a woman’s right to choose, to their access to great health care and child care, to protect in vitro fertilization. Returning women to a role of dependency a la The Handmaid’s Tale would undercut our country’s standard of living, dismiss their contributions in medical, financial, business, education and other fields, and thrust the United States onto a path of Third World status.
