“If we are arguing personhood,” said Eric Johnston, the president of the Alabama Pro-Life Coalition, “then it does not matter how a child is conceived.” Late last night, Alabama passed a total abortion ban passed in the state after an amendment that would have made an exemption to the law in cases of rape or incest failed. (The ban does have an exemption for cases in which a woman’s life is in danger.) Johnston had helped draft the bill. If it’s signed into law and allowed to take effect, doctors who perform abortions on women at any stage of pregnancy could face 99 years in prison.
In the lead up to the vote, Republican Rep. Terri Collins was even clearer, arguing that “[o]ur bill says that a baby in the womb is a person.” Collins is a cosponsor on the bill, which she hopes will help overturn Roe v. Wade. In Alabama, as in Georgia and Ohio, which both passed extreme abortion bills earlier this month, a clump of cells now has more rights than an adult woman—or, as CBS News pointed out, an sixth grader. Under the Ohio law, for example, a pregnant 11-year-old rape victim would no longer be allowed to have an abortion.
Yes, ICYMI: Republicans want to overturn Roe. They want to take away the right to have a safe abortion. They want to send us right back to America pre-1973. But it’s not just about Roe. Under Donald Trump, a man who’s had a lot of sexual relationships with a lot of women who aren’t his wife, the GOP has declared an open war on women’s reproductive health. It seems we can’t reach the end of a week without a new crisis, some gruesome legislative nightmare explicitly crafted to rein in our rights. It’s 2019, and Republicans have an unquenchable thirst for the Handmaid’s Tale agenda.
Lately, the crusade has taken the form of “heartbeat bills,” which ban abortion before most women even know they’re pregnant at around six weeks. (That’s a little after one late period, although presumably most of the men who wrote these bills are unfamiliar with how menstruation works.) Other efforts have attempted to defund Planned Parenthood, which provides life-saving mammograms and pap smears to millions of people, using a sneaky Title X “Gag Rule.” But inevitably, there’s more to come. The GOP has one goal when it comes to women—strip us of our rights to reproductive health care and the freedom to live the lives we choose.
Since the appointment of Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, state and local Republicans have doubled down on their plan to regulate women’s bodies. And why not? For the first time since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, the makeup of the court is so conservative that it’s entirely possible the decision will soon be struck from the books.
We could scream ourselves hoarse, calling out how highly strange and deeply hypocritical it is that the supposed party of small government wants to squeeze itself inside women’s uteruses. Or we could acknowledge what’s really going on here: It’s not a set of ideological principles that motivates the Republican Party. It’s a desire to control women, to limit our possibilities and our potential, to beat back the gains of feminism and civil rights, and to do all that on a platform of coercion, intimidation, and misinformation. Of course, there are some good actors in the Republican Party (likely Catholics) who truly believe that life begins at conception. I don’t believe that, but at least I understand where those people are coming from. Most anti-choice sentiment isn’t that.
At the hearing, they’ll both face Rachel Mitchell, an Arizona prosecutor with decades of experience, chosen by Republican lawmakers to assist with the fielding of questions.
The committee’s chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced the decision to hire Mitchell in a statement on Tuesday, saying that he was committed to “providing a forum to both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh on Thursday that is safe, comfortable and dignified.”
“The majority members have followed the bipartisan recommendation to hire as staff counsel for the committee an experienced career sex-crimes prosecutor to question the witnesses at Thursday’s hearing. The goal is to de-politicize the process and get to the truth, instead of grandstanding and giving senators an opportunity to launch their presidential campaigns,” he continued in the statement. “I’m very appreciative that Rachel Mitchell has stepped forward to serve in this important and serious role. Ms. Mitchell has been recognized in the legal community for her experience and objectivity.”
Here’s what we know so far about Mitchell:
Mitchell is a registered Republican who has served as a prosecutor since 1993. To make the committee hearing, she took a leave from her positions as Deputy County Attorney in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in Phoenix and the Division Chief of the Special Victims Division, which investigates sex-crimes and family-violence.
She has overseen a number of high-profile cases, including one in which former Catholic priest Paul LeBrun was accused of molesting young boys in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was found guilty.
The New York Times reports that Mitchell has been an advocate of “strengthening sex assault laws in the state and has pushed for changes in the courtroom to comfort victims testifying in abuse cases.” She also spent a number of years supervising attorneys who handled sexual assault, child molestation and prostitution, and computer crimes against children, according to Fox.
But the decision to have Mitchell question Ford and Kavanaugh doesn’t sit well with Democrats, who have pushed back against the decision to have a prosecutor do the cross-examination, arguing that Ford—who claims Kavanaugh held her down and tried to take off her clothes when they were both in high school—is not on trial.
Senator Kamala Harris, one of the members of the committee, tweeted on Tuesday, “Dr. Blasey Ford isn’t on trial. This hearing is to determine whether Kavanaugh is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. By hiring a private attorney to cross-examine Dr. Blasey Ford, Republicans are trying to intimidate her and avoid being held accountable by voters.”
Ford’s lawyer Michael Bromwich also weighed in by sending a note to Grassley, in which he expressed concern over Mitchell.
“This is not a criminal trial for which the involvement of an experienced sex-crimes prosecutor would be appropriate,” he wrote. “Neither Dr. Blasey Ford nor Judge Kavanaugh is on trial. The goal should be to develop the relevant facts, not try a case.”
Grassley said in his statement that he “promised Dr. Ford that I would do everything in my power to avoid a repeat of the ‘circus’ atmosphere in the hearing room that we saw the week of September 4.” Many have pointed out that Mitchell may be a better option to question Ford than one of the 11 male Republican members on the majority side of the committee.
Kavanaugh, who has denied the allegations, has now been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. It is not clear how the new claims will factor into Thursday’s hearing.
Ronna Romney McDaniel loves the phrase “You don’t get what you don’t ask for.”
It became a mantra after a seminal moment early in her career. At 24 she was already the head of her department at a political advertising firm, which was hiring a young man fresh out of college. He’d report to her, she learned, but he’d also make as much money as she did. She was nervous to confront the boss about the lopsided deal (“I didn’t know how to negotiate, and I didn’t know how to advocate for myself,” she says), but plunged ahead anyway. “I cried when I did it,” she admits. “I wouldn’t recommend that.
Nonetheless, she walked away with a $10,000 raise—and a priceless lesson about sticking up for herself.
Today, McDaniel, 45, is supremely confident about asking for what she wants: Since January 2017, when she became the chair of the Republican National Committee, she has helped the party haul in well over $210 million, more than any previous RNC chair during a midterm election cycle. The Michigan-based mom of two has traveled more than 150,000 miles, visiting over half the states. But there’s no time to rest: Republicans are fighting to keep their hold on Congress in a November vote that is widely seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump.
It’s easy to imagine McDaniel as one of those candidates in the arena. She’s deft at delivering GOP talking points (and talking up Trump) and unafraid to jab at Democrats (or the press), and she has the political pedigree (Mitt Romney is her uncle, and both her parents and two grandparents have run for office). But the ugliness of her mom’s 1994 U.S. Senate bid in Michigan doused any interest she might have had in making her own run. Instead she now puts her strategic chops to use behind the scenes for the GOP.
In a sit-down with Glamour, McDaniel talked about bringing more women into the Republican Party under a president who hasn’t (to put it lightly) always been well-spoken in regard to women and about whether we might see another Romney run for office.
Here are the highlights:
Glamour: You come from a political family, you were head of the Michigan GOP, but you’ve also been a full-time mom. How did you get here?
Ronna Romney McDaniel: I was on my PTA; I was room mom …. I was stay-home mom. [Then] we had a budget crisis in our state. One of the favorite teachers in our school got laid off. They couldn’t tell him if he was going to get his job back because the budget hadn’t been passed yet. You realize how things that are happening on your state level, your local level, affect your life…. I didn’t expect it would end here, but it’s an honor and a thrill.
Glamour: And now you’ve raised millions of dollars for the GOP. What drives you?
RM: A lot of it is doing my homework, [explaining why] it’s a good investment—and then not taking no for an answer…. People will blow you up. They’ll be like, “I’m not giving. I’m so mad at the party.” [You have to] listen. Take it in. Have a dialogue, and then say, “OK, let me tell you why you need to invest.”
Glamour: What is it like to work with President Trump? Some say he’s remaking the party, and others think he’s destroying it.
RM: I get along great with him. He and I have a very honest relationship; we have a great rapport…. I see him as a change agent [who] tapped into I think what a lot of people felt like was a frustration with Washington. So that’s where Trump transcended party. He was a deal maker, he’s a businessman…. He’s reached his hand out to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, trying to work across party lines.
RM: Yes, I know—and then the next day he invites them over. That’s how he is.
PHOTO: Jonno Rattman
McDaniel poses with a group of women at the Indiana Republican State Convention
PHOTO: Jonno Rattman
McDaniel preps for an interview with local television stations in Indiana
Glamour: Do President Trump’s comments about women complicate your job? Even with you running the RNC, people still sometimes say the GOP is a party of “old white dudes.”
RM: There are certain voters who that’s an issue with, but if you go to Main Street, Iowa, or Indiana, or Missouri, where a lot of our battleground races are, most of the voters are thinking about their lives…. I think being a woman has actually helped me with fundraising. I was in Colorado [and] this one guy’s like, “I just think you’re cool, so I’m going to support you because I love that you’re a woman and I have a daughter your [age].” And [I’m] like, “I’ll take it. I’m a lot cooler than you think. Let’s write a bigger check.”
Glamour: President Trump has had some very public fights with your uncle Mitt Romney. It’s been reported that the President wanted you to drop “Romney” from your name. [The chairwoman’s Twitter page identifies her only as “Ronna McDaniel.”]
RM: It’s a ridiculous story. There is no person in the world, not even the President of the United States, who could say, “Change your name.” I want to make sure that the McDaniel doesn’t get left out, because the three people who are supporting me the most have that last name—and when your middle name’s Romney, sometimes people forget the McDaniel, and that’s just not good.
Glamour: The three people are your husband, son, and daughter. How is your job affecting your family?
RM: You have to have a spouse who supports you. I don’t care if you’re male or female. But the amount of hours I’m on the road and being away from the family—[he’s] pretty much a single dad four days a week. My husband works, [so it’s about] balancing raising our kids and doing it well. There are days where it’s a tough day for my kids and I’m not home, and it’s awful. We’re making it work. I actually cooked a dinner on Sunday and it wasn’t terrible. So that’s a huge success in my life.
Glamour: Did you grow up loving politics?
RM: I hated politics. In a political family, you don’t realize what you’re learning through osmosis [at the] dinner table…. It gets heated and people are fighting, and you’re like, “What is wrong with my family? Can’t we just talk about normal, nice things?” My mom’s Senate race [was] brutal, and I just really soured on politics after that. I just didn’t like the negativity, and most of it was from our own party.
Glamour: What if one day your daughter said, “Mom, I’m running for president”?
RM: I’d be so proud of her. [It’s] hard to run for office. A lot of people don’t want to subject themselves to the scrutiny, [but] we’re only going to get the level of service that we deserve if good people step up and run. And I think my daughter would be a great president.
In a pivotal election year, Glamour is keeping track of the historic number of women running (and voting) in the midterm elections. For more on our latest midterm coverage, visit www.glamour.com/midterms.
Celeste Katz is senior politics reporter for Glamour. Send news tips, questions, and comments to celeste_katz@condenast.com.
There are few issues more divisive in the United States than those surrounding abortion rights. And while there is no doubt that the debate is not going to be definitively settled anytime soon—especially with a Supreme Court seat currently open—a new poll shows that perhaps Americans aren’t as far apart on the matter as it might seem at first glance (even when it comes to party lines).
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that 71 percent of American voters believe that Roe v. Wade—the Supreme Court ruling that gave women the legal right to an abortion—should not be overturned.
According to NBC News, that’s the highest level of support registered for the decision (and the lowest percentage of opposition at just 23 percent) in the poll’s history, which goes back to 2005. In 1989, a Gallup survey showed that 58 percent said they believed it should stay in place while 31 percent disagreed.
Any way you look at it, that’s a pretty solid majority. But it’s also interesting to note that the poll found that 52 percent of Republican voters also support Roe v. Wade and do not believe that it should be overturned—compared to 88 percent of Democrats and 76 percent of independents.
This level of support for Roe v. Wade obviously comes at an interesting time, when many are rightfully concerned about what President Trump’s conservative Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, might mean for a woman’s right to choose. In fact, the NBC News/WSJ poll also showed that support for Kavanaugh is much lower than past nominees at this point in the pre-confirmation process.
Voters also said that they are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights versus one who opposes them. And as one Twitter user pointed out, “More support for Roe than ever before. Including a majority of Republicans. Presumably some of them live in Alaska and Maine.” That’s an apparent nod to pro-choice Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, who could be swing votes in the Kavanaugh nomination.
