On the day Florida began implementing its six-week abortion ban, Vice President Kamala Harris slammed former President Donald J. Trump in Jacksonville, calling the measure “President Trump's new abortion ban.” He said that they are forcing women to survive. The “horrifying reality'' of not being able to receive essential medical care.
“Trump has already caused a lot of harm, and his second term will do it even worse,” Harris said at a convention center in a historic African-American neighborhood.
If Trump wins in November, she argued, Americans will be forced to endure “more prohibitions, more suffering, and fewer freedoms.”
President Biden has made abortion, a rare issue on which polls strongly oppose Trump, a pillar of his re-election campaign. He and Harris have been active in states with abortion restrictions, including Florida, where the president spoke last week, and Arizona, where lawmakers voted Wednesday to repeal a near-total ban dating to 1864. He has been running an election campaign.
The president and vice president have used their appearance to explain the outcome of electing Republicans, and the ban holds Trump, whose Supreme Court nominations helped overturn Roe v. Wade, responsible for the ban. is being directly imposed. The phrase “Donald Trump did this” has become a frequent refrain in Biden's ads and speeches, a sharp and direct response from a campaign struggling to get its message across to voters. It's an attack.
Harris' appearance in Jacksonville also allowed her to capitalize on an interview Trump gave to Time magazine, published Tuesday. In the interview, Mr. Trump declined to commit to vetoing the federal abortion ban, appearing to contradict his recent statements and calling for states to punish women who violate abortion bans. He said he would approve.
“Just this week, President Trump said in an interview that states have the right to monitor pregnant women to enforce these prohibitions and punish pregnant women for seeking abortion care,” Harris warned.
In Talk Points distributed to surrogate mothers on Tuesday, the Biden campaign urged them to pay attention to Trump's comments on abortion. And on Wednesday, Biden released a video of himself speaking directly to the camera.
“There appears to be no limit to President Trump's ability to invade nations,” the president said. “This should be decided between a woman and her doctor, and the government should get out of people's lives.”
By Wednesday, the six-week ban had already begun to change lives. A reproductive health clinic called A Woman's Choice, about 15 minutes from Harris' Jacksonville campaign site, has received calls from women seeking abortions.
One woman said she was calling from Georgia, which is also under a six-week curfew. Clinic officials told her that a six-week ban is currently in effect in Florida as well.
“Oh, Lord Jesus,” the woman responded, before choosing to make an appointment in North Carolina, the closest state where abortion is available for people at this stage of pregnancy.
Many women do not know that they are pregnant at the 6th week. And Florida's ban means patients in the Southeast will have to travel as far as North Carolina and Virginia to seek abortions, putting costs out of reach for many.
“The extremists who wrote this ban either don't know how women's bodies work, or they just don't care,” Harris said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a six-week suspension last year ahead of his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination in an attempt to curry favor with social conservatives. Floridians have a chance to overturn this law in a November referendum. That has revived faint hopes among Democrats that Florida could play a role in the presidential election, although the Biden campaign has yet to invest significant amounts of money in the state and voter registration remains low. Republicans hold a huge advantage.
“This is going to be a big change here in Florida. It's going to be a motivator,” said Ruth's List Florida, chief executive officer of Ruth's List Florida, a group that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights. , said Christina Diamond.
Ms. Diamond added: “The reason there is a six-week ban is because the state Legislature and statewide offices are held by Republicans.”
To drive home this point, the Democratic National Committee has placed billboards with Trump's face all over Florida asking women how far they must drive to reach a state where they can get an abortion. I told you what to do. They also hired a plane to fly over the former president's Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, holding a banner that read, “Trump's Plan: Ban Abortion, Punish Women.” .
(Trump is campaigning in Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday, as the criminal trial against him in Manhattan is adjourned for the day.)
Florida Republicans responded to Harris' visit by talking about everything but abortion.
“Families in Florida, and especially in Jacksonville, are suffering under the train wreck of Biden-Harris-Bidennomics,” Florida Republican Party Chairman Evan Power said in a statement. “Groceries are more expensive. Gasoline prices are soaring. And housing costs continue to push Americans' wallets to breaking point. Meanwhile, the lawlessness of the Biden bloodshed's open borders has cost everyone, including Florida. states have become border states.
Jacksonville has one of the largest black populations in the United States, and the six-week ban is most likely to disproportionately impact African American women, who undergo surgery at higher rates than other groups. .
The Biden campaign is working to strengthen support among African Americans. Polls show that black voters are more likely to say abortion is a top issue. At the Jacksonville event, the marching band from Edward Waters University, a historically black college, warmed up the crowd. Harris' introductory speakers included Fentris Driskell and Tracy Davis, two of the state's most prominent black politicians.
“We want to give Florida girls the same freedoms that their mothers and grandmothers had,” said Driskell, a Tampa Democrat and state House minority leader. “Now, let's say it loud enough to shake the walls of Mar-a-Lago and be heard from Jacksonville. Get out of our medical care. Get out of the exam room. We'll take back our rights.”
abigail geiger Contributed from Jacksonville, Florida Reid J. Epstein from washington Patricia Mazzei Originally from Miami.
