In 1965, when Betty Gunz was a junior in college, she was kicked out of school and almost died after having an illegal abortion.
In the years since, she’s told the story of those days so many times that she no longer cries as she recounts being blindfolded in a strip mall parking lot, being given whiskey instead of anesthesia as the procedure was done on a kitchen table, and the hospital calling her parents to say their goodbyes after she developed sepsis and organ failure.
In 1977, she told that story in a committee hearing in a failed bid to stop North Carolina legislators from passing some of the first post-Roe abortion restrictions, which required parental consent for minors. In 2022, she talked about it again in interviews after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision with local outlets here while standing outside the abortion clinic where she volunteers as an escort. And earlier this year, she marked the second anniversary of the ruling that overturned the federal right to an abortion by campaigning for Democrats, again describing what happened nearly 60 years ago.
“We had to fight for a long time,” Gunz, now an 80-year-old retired psychotherapist, told CNN during an interview in her Charlotte home. “And here we are, fighting it again.”
Vice President Kamala Harris has made reproductive rights — and former President Donald Trump’s role in appointing three of the conservative judges who overturned Roe v. Wade — a central part of her campaign pitch in a bid to harness women’s anger into electoral victories. While much of the focus has been on younger women, some female seniors say reproductive rights is also a top issue for them.
Unlike younger generations, who until recently may have taken federal abortion protections for granted, older women recall the era of illegal backroom abortions that preceded Roe. Some, like Gunz, consider themselves to be the lucky ones, because they survived and went on to have families and careers. Others described feeling angry and concerned about women’s broader place in society and the rights available to their daughters and granddaughters.
“You think, well, weren’t we vigilant enough?” said Diane Stevens, a 76-year-old abortion rights advocate who helped women get illegal abortions in the early 1970s as a member of the Jane Collective. Stevens, a Harris supporter, is now a clinic escort at a Charlotte abortion clinic and helps raise money for down-ballot Democratic candidates.
A poll of women voters released in June by KFF, a health research organization, found that 73% of those ages 65 and up said they think abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances, as did a similar number of women ages 30-49 and ages 50-64. The youngest cohort, those ages 18-29, were even more supportive: Eighty-seven percent said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
A fight for the senior vote
Not all older women are motivated by abortion. Like the general population, older voters are more likely to cite the economy, immigration and protecting democracy as top issues ahead of reproductive rights. But in a race that is expected to be decided on the margins, boosting support among women and older voters could make a difference.
For months, polls have suggested that Harris could be the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the 65 and older voting bloc since Vice President Al Gore in 2000. North Carolina is one of five swing states — along with Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona — that has a higher concentration of seniors than the US average.
“It’s premature to say that Harris is likely to win seniors, but I certainly would not rule it out,” said Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster. “And in terms of the issue of abortion, there is certainly a segment of seniors, and more likely to be women, who do focus on abortion.”
The Trump campaign and the Republican Party are making an economic pitch to seniors and argued that they’ll maintain the support of the voting bloc because higher costs are hurting older Americans on fixed incomes. Trump has also pledged to block age increases for Medicare access and to end taxes on Social Security benefits.
“Seniors are supporting President Trump because he is the only candidate who will protect their Medicare benefits, bring down costs, and stop the migrant crime crisis that’s threatening communities across the country,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement.
There are some signs in early voting data that women seniors are highly motivated to vote, said Tom Bonier, a Democratic strategist and CEO of the data firm TargetSmart. While early voting has dropped about 30% from the 2020 election, Democratic senior women are voting at higher rates than they did in 2020, and older women overall are outvoting their male counterparts by a wider margin.
“In the numbers, we can’t always answer the why, we can just answer the what,” he said. “The most common thing I hear is, ‘Look, we were alive pre-Roe, we know what it was like. We’re not going back there.’”
Not just a young women’s issue
On a recent Sunday afternoon, volunteers for Harris and North Carolina Democrats gathered at a parking lot in Cary, a suburb just outside Raleigh, to knock on doors.
MaryAnne Handy, a 69-year-old office manager from Chapel Hill, said it was her first time canvassing. She had lived through former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not becoming the first female president and she didn’t want history to repeat itself.
“I made a pact with God that if he elected Kamala, I promised I would go back to church, which I haven’t been in 15 years,” she said. “He’s never let me down before.”
Handy, a Catholic, said that she believes life starts at conception but that the decision to end or keep a pregnancy is a personal one. When Roe was first overturned, she first considered what it meant for her granddaughters. But then she thought of herself, and the abortion she had in 1981 after suffering an ectopic pregnancy, a life-threatening condition when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus.
“This is something that would have very adversely affected me,” Handy said. “I probably wouldn’t have any granddaughters.”
Last year, North Carolina lawmakers passed a 12-week abortion limit. Pregnancies can be terminated through the 20th week of pregnancy if caused by rape or incest, through the first 24 weeks if doctors determine the fetus has a life-limiting anomaly, and beyond that point, only in the case of a medical emergency.
Abortion bans in many states, including North Carolina, make exceptions for ectopic pregnancies, but patients have reported delays in care. Two Texas women are suing their hospitals, alleging they were denied prompt treatment for ectopic pregnancies that burst in their fallopian tubes.
Another Cary volunteer, 80-year-old retired research biologist Naomi Jean Bernheim, said that she’s been involved in politics at different points in her life — she said she was a Raleigh Young Democrat and phone banked in support of abortion rights for NARAL, now known as Reproductive Freedom for All, 30 or 40 years ago. Now she spends her free time putting Harris campaign signs along the sides of roads and highways — it’s the most involved she’s been with a presidential campaign, she said.
She described the overturning of Roe as a “shock.”
“I’ve had people yell at me, ‘Why is an old lady worried about it?’ But you’ve got all of these women who really believe in this,” Bernheim said. “To me, it’s not just a young woman thing, it’s every woman. I mean, what else will they take if they take this? What else is coming?”
Karen Taggart, a 49-year-old product manager from Morrisville, said she’s knocked on more than 650 doors since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris. When she talks to voters, she leads by asking them what issues are top of mind as they consider their options.
One of her own top issues was evident for those who answered their doors that Sunday: She wore a floral “Our Bodies, Our Vote” hoodie designed by Ulla Johnson for the Harris campaign store and a retro “Roe” hat she bought around when the Dobbs decision dropped.
“It’s so loaded with so many other issues,” she said. “It’s about bodily autonomy. This is my body. I get to choose what I do with it, period, end of story.”
Near the end of her shift, Taggart had a conversation with Mary, a 73-year-old Cary resident and Harris supporter who declined to give her last name.
“I feel like we’re taking a giant step backward,” she said of the Dobbs decision. “Women need to have the say.”
A return to states’ rights
It won’t be enough for Harris to motivate Democratic supporters.
Four years ago, Trump won 52% of voters 65 and older and 55% of White women nationally, while Biden won 57% of women overall, according to CNN exit polls.
In North Carolina, which gave Trump his narrowest margin of victory of less than 2 percentage points, the former president won 59% of seniors and 64% of White women, and Biden won 53% of women overall.
Carolyn, a 68-year-old from Mint Hill who declined to give her last name, wore a pink top and a matching “Make America Great Again” hat to vote early for the former president.
“I’m very independent-minded, so I’ll vote who I feel is going to do best for me,” she said. “I’m on Social Security. No tax on Social Security would be wonderful for me. And when I was working, no tax on overtime would have been wonderful for me.”
She said she doesn’t think Harris gives direct answers in interviews and hasn’t done enough to secure the southern border. On abortion, Carolyn said she was glad to see the issue returned to the state and agreed with Trump’s support of exceptions in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life of the pregnant person. Beyond that, there are contraceptives, she said.
“Birth control has been around forever and ever — I should know, I took birth control forever,” she said. “It’s not hard to pop a pill every day.”
Jeanne Gaffney, a 74-year-old retired nurse and self-described independent from Charlotte, also voted early for Trump, which she called a “very tough choice.” For her, it came down to the economy, immigration and foreign policy — specifically, which candidate she thought would be best at dealing with world leaders.
Her views on abortion were complicated. Though she backed the former president, she voted against Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, who has told supporters he supports further restrictions in the state and who has made derogatory comments about women.
Gaffney thought the state’s 12-week limit was “a little close” and would have preferred 16 weeks. She also opposed what she described as “extremes on both sides.” On a personal level, she said a distant family member died of an illegal abortion a century ago. But if abortion had been more readily available before Gaffney was conceived, she may not have been born, she said.
“So you see, it’s a very complex issue, and politicizing it doesn’t help,” she said, adding: “It’s sad for me that this issue, for some women … is the total issue, when there’s so many other things going on in this country that need to be addressed.”
For Gunz, there are issues other than abortion: income inequality, racism, public school funding, immigration reform and the state of US democracy. Abortion is just the one with which she has the most personal experience.
“This one’s not theoretical, so it’s up at the top of the list for me,” she said.
