Two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, sparking a flurry of state-level anti-abortion laws and a fierce political backlash, Democrats are marking the anniversary by highlighting the role former President Donald J. Trump played in ending the constitutional right to abortion.
Democrats have been working across the country through ads, campaign rallies and press conferences to remind voters that it was Trump-appointed judges who helped overturn Roe v. Wade.
“Donald Trump is solely responsible for this nightmare,” President Biden said in a statement Monday. “My message to the American people is this: Kamala and I are fighting tooth and nail to restore your freedom.”
The messaging effort comes amid a fierce presidential election, as Biden faces sagging approval ratings and signs that the coalition that drove his 2020 victory is fraying.
Democrats are trying to rekindle voter support by repeating the same arguments that helped them win over the past two years: that Republicans have become more extreme than ever and are engaging in extraordinary infringements of some of the most personal health care decisions Americans make.
“This issue is fundamentally about freedom,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in an MSNBC interview that will air in full on Monday. “When people of all genders are stripped of fundamental freedoms, such as the right to make decisions about their own bodies, they should recognize what other freedoms may be at risk.”
According to the Biden campaign, she is expected to speak in College Park, Maryland, and Phoenix on Monday to “remind voters that Donald Trump bears responsibility for the overturning of Roe and the chaos that followed” and “highlight the threat that President Trump's reelection poses to reproductive freedom across the nation.”
Her husband, Doug Emhoff, is planning to travel to Flint and Clawson, Michigan, with a similar message, and top Biden supporters around the country are seizing on the issue to highlight divisions in the race.
“It's a binary choice about who can restrict your rights,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said in an interview Sunday. “This is just their narrative of extremism, but it's woven in because this is reality. It's not theoretical.”
Democrats deployed this messaging successfully in key races in the 2022 midterm elections and in several special elections since then, months after Roe was overturned, with campaigns including Biden's emphasizing women's personal experiences with Republican-backed abortion bans.
But Americans are also considering a wide range of other issues in this election, and polls show that voters say Trump would do a better job than Biden on several key issues, though not on abortion policy.
“Polls have consistently shown Biden and the Democrats already ahead on the abortion issue, while Trump continues to lead in battleground states,” Republican pollster Robert Blizzard said. “Democrats will undoubtedly lean toward the abortion issue, but unless Democrats find a way to break with Trump's legacy on the economy, it will continue to be an uphill battle.”
Trump spokesman Steven Chan did not respond Sunday to a request for comment on the Democrats' message.
Voters also evaluate the personal traits of Biden, 81, the oldest US president in history, and Trump, 78, the first US president to be convicted of a crime.
Trump has said he is “proud to be the man responsible” for overturning Roe v. Wade (a claim Democrats are keen to emphasise), and has suggested that if elected he would allow states to prosecute women who violate abortion restrictions, and has said abortion laws should be left to the states, dismaying some on the right.
The issue is almost certain to come up in Thursday's debate, the first of the general election campaign.