Abortion rights advocates were stunned by the president Joe Biden‘s vague and sometimes incoherent messages about abortion access during Thursday night’s debate, especially when he refused to refute former President Donald Trump’s false claims that Democrats support killing babies.
“The debate was a disaster,” said Dr. Warren Hern, director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic in Colorado. “It’s going to be hard to recover from this.”
The debate should have been a lay-up for people who are in favor of abortion rights. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, touted the fact that he nominated three anti-abortion judges to the Supreme Court during his term from 2017 to 2021. As a result, the constitutional right to abortion was overturned in 2022, leaving states to decide for themselves whether women were allowed to terminate the pregnancy and at what stage.
But Biden did little to challenge his opponent on this issue in Thursday’s showdown. He said the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was a “terrible thing,” but then changed the subject to a nursing student who was murdered on the University of Georgia campus earlier this year — an incident unrelated abortion.
Julie Burkhart, co-owner of Hope Clinic, which provides abortions in Granite City, Illinois, said Biden’s lackluster performance on the issue has left her colleagues feeling “disheartened, anxious and worried.” She said she fears a second Trump presidency could lead to a nationwide ban on abortion.
“I think this presidential election is the most important election I will ever see in my life,” Burkhart said.
Abortion opponents said the same thing. They are hopeful that a second Trump presidency would lead to “reasonable measures” to ensure “tax dollars are not used to pay for abortions,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee.
The polarizing opinions come as the nation continues to grapple with the issue of abortion care. This past week marked the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe . According to a recent survey by KFF, a health care research and policy group, 1 in 10 women say abortion rights are the most important issue that will determine their vote.
“Abortion rights advocates must ensure that the public understands what is at stake for women’s health care and women’s rights,” Hern said. “It’s a desperate situation.”
Abortion rights advocates say they will stand by their message ahead of the election. They are trying to steer voters away from Biden’s poor performance by focusing on his administration’s overall goals and decisions about who should be in charge of influential health care institutions.
“What direction are those agency heads going to take? Are they going to defend attacks on abortion access, or are they going to enact rules that make it harder, if not impossible, for people to access care?” said Michelle Velasquez, chief strategy officer at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
“The presidency is more than one person,” Velasquez said.
Leila Abolfazli, director of national abortion strategy at the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, said the group will continue to explain the impact of pending decisions, such as the Supreme Court’s sidestepping of a decision on whether Idaho’s abortion ban violates with a federal law setting standards for emergency room patients, including women whose pregnancies are life-threatening.
“The struggle I have is to explain to people what these short-lived concepts and laws actually mean in everyday life,” Abolfazli said. “Pregnancy-related care is under attack, as it is across the board. That’s what people need to realize.”
In addition to the presidential election, four states have amendments on the ballot in November aimed at preserving abortion rights: Colorado, Florida, Maryland and South Dakota.
“We’re all holding our breath until November,” said Candace Dye, owner of A Woman’s World Medical Center in Fort Pierce, Florida, a clinic that offers abortions. “I hope and pray that this amendment is passed.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
