Biden campaign sharpens its post-Roe message: abortion is about freedom
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will headline events next week around protecting abortion rights, bringing more attention to an issue that has galvanized voters in the 18 months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
On Monday, Ms. Harris will visit Wisconsin to begin a national tour aimed at preserving access to reproductive health care as Republicans call for more restrictions. She will then join Biden on Tuesday at an abortion rights rally in Virginia, where Democrats recently took control of the state legislature and proposed to enshrine protection against abortion in the state constitution.
Ms. Harris gave Americans a taste of the administration's election-year coverage when she visited “The View,” most popular daytime talk show in the country.
“We are not asking anyone to give up their personal beliefs,” she said during an appearance on Wednesday, adding that “the government should not tell women what to do with their bodies.”
The idea that preserving access to abortion amounts to preserving personal freedoms has been embraced by Biden administration officials, lawmakers and activists, who hope it will reinvigorate a weak base and draw independent voters into the fold . They also want to contrast the administration's policies with the political danger the Republican Party faces by embracing tough measures.
“I take the position that most Americans believe that women should have the freedom to make their own health care decisions, including abortion, without government interference,” said Senator Tina Smith, Democrat of Minnesota, who is serving as a surrogate for the Iowa caucuses. for Mr. Biden, said in an interview. (About 69 percent of voters say abortion should be legal during the first three months of pregnancy, This is evident from a Gallup poll last year.)
“There is no doubt about where the president stands on protecting reproductive freedom and people's freedom to make their own decisions,” she added.
Mr. Biden — a practicing Catholic who was once a critic of abortions — has long spoken about abortion rights in the context of personal freedom. At recent fundraising events, he has attacked Donald J. Trump, the former president who installed three conservative justices on the Supreme Court, for paving the way for restrictive abortion bans that now exist in states like Texas, where private citizens can sue Tighten. abortion providers and those who serve patients who want an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.
“Trump wants to run for president and brag that he killed Roe v. Wade,” Biden told supporters at a fundraiser front desk in Denver in November. “So let's be absolutely clear about what Trump is bragging about. The only reason there is a ban on abortion and the conditions in many places is because of Donald Trump.”
Republicans have largely coalesced around Mr. Trump, who suggested in 2016 that women seeking abortions should have some form of punishment before reversing his statement as a Republican presidential candidate. Yet some know the party has a messaging problem.
Sarah Chamberlain, president of Republican Main Street Partnership, a conservative advisory group that she said works with 90 members of Congress, said the Republican Party was “losing the women's vote.”
“Now the members are saying: 'Listen, make sure we get good information about this; we want to learn about this; we want to know how this affects women,'” Ms Chamberlain said. “When Dobbs came out of the Supreme Court, I don't think they thought that would be the issue. As a woman, I tried to tell them, 'Listen, it's going to be a big deal,' and they were kind of taken aback.”
In Congress, some Republicans, especially those in swing districts, are quietly moving away from restrictive abortion laws, including a bill called the Life at Conception Act, which amounted to a nationwide abortion ban.
Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican who represents a purple district in South Carolina, co-sponsored the first version of the bill but has since distanced herself from it. She said in an interview that Republicans “don't need to vote on a complete ban.” Instead, she called on Republicans to “be compassionate toward women.”
Democrats and abortion rights activists believe they offer a stark contrast. But some advocates say the Biden administration could do more.
Dr. Caroline Moreau, a reproductive health expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the administration could still pursue a more progressive abortion agenda. It could increase funding for Title
But Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, and an expert on the history and politics of abortion, said Congress and the courts played an important role in larger policy decisions on the issue, such as codifying Roe , relaxing restrictions on abortion. the distribution of abortion pills or deciding on a hospital's right to perform emergency abortions.
“There may be a problem for Biden in that young people don't know what Biden can practically do that he hasn't done yet,” Ms. Ziegler said. “What the administration has not communicated effectively is what Trump could do. The reality is that things could get much worse regardless of Congress.”
The legal battle is also increasing. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the abortion drug mifepristone was challenged in court, and in December the Supreme Court announced it would hear a case challenging the federal agency's approval of the widely used pill.
The Biden administration is also in the midst of a legal battle with the states of Texas and Idaho over whether a federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as EMTALA, requires hospital emergency rooms to perform abortions in urgent circumstances to feed. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the Idaho case.
On Friday, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, the Biden campaign manager, wrote in a memo that Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris are “the only candidates in the race for president who will veto a national abortion ban” and are “fighting to restore power .” protection of Roe.”
Mini Timmaraju, the president of Reproductive Freedom for All — formerly known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, before the group was renamed to emphasize that its mission was to preserve basic freedoms — praised Ms. Harris' visit to “The View ' and called it a 'masterclass' in talking to independent and conservative-leaning voters about the consequences of abortion restrictions. On the programme, Ms Harris, as she has done at other appearances across the country, warned that other civil protection measures could be abolished along with abortion rights.
“So many of us actually grew up when Roe was intact, and we would absolutely say, 'We have to protect it; we must protect it, a woman's right to choose,” Ms. Harris said. “But we actually believed that it would always be there. And look what happened. And I also say that in the context of this democracy. Don't take anything for granted.”
The vice president's approach drew praise from the most unlikely source: Fox News.
“She knows what is true, which is that the Republican Party has lost every single abortion ballot initiative after Roe — every single one,” said Kayleigh McEnany, a Fox News personality who served as former President Donald J. Trump's press secretary during his final year in office . presidency, said on the network after the vice president's appearance on “The View.” Ms. McEnany, who opposes abortion, said she has urged Republicans to speak “compassionately” on the issue.
“We as a party have to do that because what Kamala does, right or wrong, is very powerful among young women,” she said.
Noah Weiland reporting contributed.