Good morning. I’m Erin Anderssen, a feature writer at The Globe. With early voting under way in Florida, young women are fighting for their reproductive freedom – more on that below, along with Berlin’s rising housing costs and how much U.S. pollsters actually know. But first:
Today’s headlines
- Ottawa says Lebanese nationals in Canada don’t need to return while the fighting with Hezbollah rages
- A Canadian is among the pro-Ukraine fighters killed in battle on Russian soil
- Pharmacists are being unfairly blocked from stocking drugs for pets, the Competition Bureau says
- The Dodgers beat the Yankees 7-6 to win the World Series in five games
Savanna Collins fills out the pledge to vote card given to her by Amelia Zehnder, a volunteer in Florida.Tina Russell/The Globe and Mail
U.S. Election
Abortion on the ballot
Earlier this month, in Florida, as I went door to door with women campaigning for abortion rights, I expected people to be angry.
That’s often our main takeaway from U.S. politics, especially in Republican states like Florida, where early voting is now well under way and where a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 5 ballot could reverse the state’s current ban on abortion after six weeks, and enshrine the right to choose into law.
With such an emotional issue at stake, anger and divisiveness certainly happens. Sasha Hernandez, for example, said she was handing out flyers for the amendment near a grocery store when an older woman called her a whore and tried to hit her with a purse. Hernandez, who was still new to canvassing then, went home and cried.
But while shadowing Hernandez and other women fighting for reproductive justice, I watched husbands, brothers and grandmothers – even those personally opposed to abortion – come to the door, willing to respectfully discuss the issue. That includes Anthony Martinez, an air-conditioning contractor, who told me afterwards that he was voting for Donald Trump because he believed he would be better for the economy. “He’s not a likeable guy,” he admitted, “but who cares?”
As I saw that weekend, the young women fighting to restore their right to abortion do care – very much.
Nearly half of American states have added new restrictions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, and 13 states have banned abortion outright – making the United States, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, one of only four countries in the world to tighten their abortion laws, while most of the rest of the world loosens them.
As 26-year-old Amelia Zehnder put it, women in Florida have fewer rights in 2024 than their mothers and grandmothers before them.
In Florida, abortion is now banned before many women even realize they are pregnant. The consequences are well known: women required to travel hundreds of miles out of state for abortion care; doctors refusing to treat women who are miscarrying, for fear of fines or jail.
Amendment 4 would restore the right to an abortion protected by Roe v Wade – up to about 24 weeks. But it needs at least 60 per cent of the popular vote to pass, and that’s what the young activists I met were working so hard to achieve.
Their frustration was obvious. Before I even arrived in Orlando, I spoke to Michaela O’Brien, 22, who was returning from a school trip in Italy in 2022 when the news came down about the Supreme Court ruling on abortion. “It felt like I was coming home to a different country,” she told me.
That same day, jet-lagged and exhausted, she marched in a pro-choice rally and began volunteering. “I was so angry,” she said. “It was exactly what I needed for healing.”
I saw what this young cohort can accomplish when they are engaged and empowered, in conversation with strangers, but also with their own families.
I spent Saturday morning canvassing with Alexis Hobbs, a 21-year-old in St Petersburg. Hobbs, who plans to go to law school, married her high school boyfriend, a military airplane mechanic serving in New Mexico. He was reading The Handmaid’s Tale – which, Hobbs noted, is banned in Florida schools – aloud to her over Facetime. And, inspired by his wife, he was also talking to his coworkers about abortion rights – sometimes even sending questions from them to Hobbs to answer.
But as I wrote in the story, there was real fear beneath their anger. I heard about young women, worried that contraception might become the government’s next target, rushing out to get IUDs. They knew that if the device was inside them, their birth control would be secure – or as 19-year-old Audrey Hopper told me, nobody “could rip it out of me.”
What’s it like in Canada, they would often ask me? When I told them that abortion is considered a private matter between a patient and her doctor – and free to all women in Canada – their jaws dropped.
One young activist who knew the difference was Erika Tarongoy, a 22-year-old Filipina-Canadian who’d moved to Florida from Saskatoon when she was 15. As a Canadian, she can’t vote on Nov. 5, so volunteering was her way to contribute. Like all my other interviews, she was trying to stay hopeful. “I have no worry left in me,” she said.
But if the amendment doesn’t pass, will this fight consume their energy for years to come? Tarongoy suggests they are ready: “We’re just going to have to try again and again and again.”
The Shot
‘Berlin’s reputation as a cheap artists’ enclave is no longer accurate.’
A sign in Berlin reads "This is not Monopoly."ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images
In Berlin – where 80 per cent of residents rent – a severe shortage of supply, a sharp rise in costs and the arrival of tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees have made it hard for everyone to find a home. Read more about the city’s housing challenges here.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
At home: Colleges across the country prepare for revenue declines after Ottawa’s cuts to international student programs.
Abroad: In Britain, Labour’s first budget in 14 years includes £40-billion in tax hikes and hefty increases in public spending and borrowing.
U.S. election (five days to go): National polls have always underestimated Donald Trump, but pollsters say this time will be different – maybe.
National treasure: If we’re just talking about evolutionary distinctiveness, the most Canadian animal isn’t the beaver or the moose. It’s the spiny softshell turtle.