No, Stacey Abrams Didn’t Say Abortion Can ‘Solve Inflation’
Abrams said that abortion is an economic issue, which is true. And Republicans deliberately misinterpreted her remarks to gin up outrage.
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Stacey Abrams, Georgia’s Democratic nominee for governor, made an argument during a TV appearance that Jezebel has been underscoring for weeks: While midterm voters’ top concern may be the economy, abortion is very much an economic issue. Predictably, Republicans lost their minds—just like they did when she said, correctly, that six-week embryos don’t actually have heartbeats.
Abrams appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday and contributor Mike Barnicle asked her to explain what a governor can do about high prices for everyday expenses like gas and groceries, given that abortion is probably secondary to people’s concerns about inflation and the economy.
Abrams correctly said these issues are linked, especially when a pregnancy is forced by the state under an abortion ban. She responded:
“Let’s be clear: having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas. It’s why you’re concerned about how much food costs. For women, this is not a reductive issue. You can’t divorce being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy from the economic realities of having a child. And so these are…it’s important for us to have both and conversations. We don’t have the luxury of reducing it or separating them out.
But we also have to talk about what a governor can do. A governor can address housing prices, a governor can address the cost of education, a governor can put money into the pockets of everyday, hardworking Georgians instead of giving tax cuts to the wealthy. That’s what I talk about on the trail and that’s what’s resonating.
But let’s not pretend that women—half the population—especially those of childbearing age, they understand that having a child is absolutely an economic issue. It is only politicians who see it as simply another cultural conversation. It is a real biological and economic imperative conversation that women need to have.”
She’s saying that, for people who can get pregnant and their families, abortion restrictions can’t be separated from the economy. Makes a lot of sense!