KALAMAZOO, Michigan – Mrs Michelle Obama on Oct 26 issued an impassioned plea to American voters – and, in particular, the men – in a searing and intimate depiction of women’s bodies and reproductive health, and what she described as the life-or-death stakes of returning former president Donald Trump to power.

       In the former first lady’s first appearance on the campaign trail during this election, Mrs Obama, long reluctant to engage in the political arena, described the far-reaching consequences of the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, in the terms of personal tragedy.

       “If your wife is shivering and bleeding on the operating room table during a routine delivery gone bad, her pressure dropping as she loses more and more blood, or some unforeseen infection spreads and her doctors aren’t sure if they can act, you will be the one praying that it’s not too late,” she said.

       “You will be the one pleading for somebody, anybody, to do something.”

       And although she acknowledged the anger that many Americans feel about the “slow pace of change” in the country, she warned: “If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women, will become collateral damage to your rage.”

       Mrs Obama’s words – at a rally where she introduced Vice-President Kamala Harris – amounted to an extraordinary centring of women’s bodies and their private experiences in a presidential election.

       She discussed menstrual cramps and hot flashes, describing the shame and uncertainty girls and women feel about their bodies.

       She castigated the media and many voters for holding Ms Harris to a higher standard than her opponent, for “choosing to ignore Donald Trump’s gross incompetence, while asking Kamala to dazzle us at every turn”.

       But it was her remarks on women’s health that most captivated the audience. Mrs Obama said Trump would further damage women’s healthcare, while Ms Harris has vowed to enshrine the protections of Roe vs Wade in federal law.

       Mrs Obama’s message was, in part, a counterpoint to the argument her husband, former president Barack Obama, made to Black men in October, when he suggested that sexism might be preventing them from voting for a woman.

       Perhaps, Mrs Obama seemed to say, men could instead be persuaded to vote for the women in their lives.

       “I am asking you, from the very core of my being: Please, take our lives seriously,” she said. NYT