Joe Biden and Kamala Harris marked the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v Wade with strong campaign statements that placed the blame squarely at the door. Donald Trump for ending the national right to abortion.
In a video released Monday, Biden pledged to restore abortion rights and “protect American freedom” if he is re-elected.
The video, along with a campaign event led by the vice president, came exactly two years since the court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization reversed nearly half a century of guaranteed federal abortion rights, and reflects the central role that abortion plays in the fight against abortion. Biden’s presidential campaign.
In College Park, Maryland, Harris took the stage with chants of “four more years.” In her remarks, she laid out what she sees as the stakes for abortion access if Trump is re-elected.
“Understand how much damage he has already done: a second Trump term will be even worse,” she said. “His friends in Congress are trying to pass a national ban that would ban abortion in every state, in states like New York and California, and even here in Maryland.”
She called Republicans who passed state-level bans Trump’s “accomplices” and warned he would go further by restricting access to contraception and IVF.
“Enough with the gaslighting,” Harris says of Trump’s wavering stance on abortion.
— Lauren Gambino (@laurenegambino) June 24, 2024
Referring to the statistic that one in three American women live in a state with abortion restrictions, she said: “Today our daughters have fewer rights than their grandmothers. This is a health care crisis, and we all know who to blame: Donald Trump.”
Kate Cox, the Texas woman who was denied an abortion last year despite a fatal fetal abnormality under the state’s near-total ban, introduced Harris to Maryland.
“My state has chosen to drive me from my home, my community, away from my children and my doctors, rather than give me access to care,” she said. “I will never miss an opportunity to vote again. I will vote in every election as if my life depends on it.”
Cox eventually left Texas to receive care. She became emotional on stage on Monday and said that she is pregnant again and is expecting a child in January. The crowd burst into applause. “I hope that by then, when we welcome our baby into the world, we will have a world led by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” she said.
“You are a hero of this movement,” Harris told Cox.
Biden’s video also saw the president lay the blame for overturning abortion rights on Trump, quoting him bragging about the decision and taking credit for putting three conservative justices on the court.
“This is what Donald Trump says about your freedom: ‘After fifty years of failure, with no one even coming close, I was able to kill Roe v Wade,’” Biden said, quoting a statement Trump made last year.
“Two years ago, Trump’s handpicked Supreme Court justices helped overturn Roe v Wade,” Biden continued. “Decades of progress have fallen apart just because the last guy got four years in the White House.”
Donald Trump is proud of having overturned Roe v. Wade.
We know what will happen if he gets another four years in the White House: he will try to ban the right to choose nationwide.
We have to stop him in November. pic.twitter.com/Pj4a0uFA8b
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 24, 2024
“We are against extremism. Send me back to the White House and I will fight hard to restore Roe v Wade and protect American freedom.”
The offensive comes amid polls showing that with continued weak approval ratings for Biden, concerns over reproductive rights represent Democrats’ best hope of retaining the White House in November.
Since Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022, ballot measures in several states — including states that tend to vote Republican — have upheld or entrenched abortion rights locally, indicating that the issue has popular resonance, especially among female voters.
On Friday, a group of abortion rights advocates in Montana became the latest to announce that they had collected enough signatures to hold a ballot measure in November asking voters to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution. Although the measure has not yet been confirmed by state officials, voters in about a dozen states are expected to directly address abortion rights this year, including in battleground states like Nevada and Arizona.
Democrats hope these measures will increase turnout in their favor.
Several groups — including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Freedom for All — announced a $100 million Abortion Access Now campaign in several states on Monday.
Since the fall of Roe, Biden has repeatedly promised to “codify” Roe’s protections into law. Although his administration has issued executive orders aimed at promoting access to reproductive health care, including contraception, and defended abortion access in two Supreme Court cases this year, Biden cannot restore the federal right to abortion without support from the Congres. Congress has repeatedly failed to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill that would prevent states from completely banning abortion before fetal viability, or the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb.
In a call with reporters on Monday, White House officials declined to reveal plans for future abortion-related executive actions. Jennifer Klein, assistant to the president and director of the Gender Policy Council, also acknowledged that if the Supreme Court were to rule against the Biden administration in a long-awaited case on emergency abortions, “our options for emergency medical care are likely to be limited will be.” .
Trump has tried to reverse his position in recent months, telling Republicans in Congress at a meeting on Capitol Hill this month that the matter should be left to the states and warning them against pursuing a national ban.
