Biden, Harris target Republican curbs on abortion rights on Roe anniversary

[January 22, 2024]  By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will spotlight Republican curbs on abortion rights this week, a galvanizing issue for Democrats that they hope will boost enthusiasm among their base, attract independent voters, and increase turnout in November.

On Monday, the 51st anniversary of the now-overturned Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling, Biden will convene a reproductive rights taskforce meeting at the White House and Harris will kick off a national tour on abortion rights in Wisconsin, a state crucial to Biden's re-election prospects that he won by about 20,600 votes in 2020.

On Tuesday, Biden and Harris, along with first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, will then make their first joint campaign appearance of 2024 at a rally for abortion rights in Virginia, where Democrats recently won control of the state legislature.

The Biden campaign is putting abortion rights front and center in 2024, and argues abortion access is a personal freedom that former President Donald Trump and Republicans are denying women. Anti-abortion advocates, with the backing of Christian evangelical groups, argue stricter limits on abortion are needed at the state and national level.

"We are not yet done," March for Life President Jeanne Mancini said in Washington on Friday.

Polls show Biden tied with Trump, as Biden's campaign battles voter concerns about his age, the economy and handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Democrats hope a threat of further curbs on abortion will bring voters to the polls in November.

"When candidates run on defending reproductive freedom, they win elections," Biden's campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a memo on Friday.

A new advertising campaign, targeted at suburban women and young voters in election battleground states, focuses on the personal impact of abortion bans.

The first 60-second ad, "Forced," features Dr. Austin Dennard, an OB-GYN in Texas, who had to flee her state for an abortion.

All seven statewide ballot initiatives to enshrine reproductive rights since 2022 have succeeded, including in conservative Ohio, Kansas and Kentucky.

Abortion rights groups are collecting signatures in Arizona, Nevada and Florida to put a reproductive rights amendment on the ballot in 2024 as well.

Most opinion polls, including a Reuters/Ipsos poll in July, show a majority of U.S. voters oppose presidential candidates who favor strict abortion limits.

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on abortion rights in a speech hosted by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) at the Howard Theatre in Washington, U.S., October 18, 2022. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

The conservative-majority Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the Roe v. Wade decision, issued in 1973, that recognized nationwide a woman's constitutional right to abortion.

Republicans have since issued restrictive abortion laws in nearly two dozen states.

Republican presidential candidates are divided on proposals for a federal limit on abortion. Former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley has urged Republicans to focus on finding consensus while Trump has changed his rhetoric on abortion as the Republican primary unfolds.

He has called for punishment for women who get abortions, saying he was "proud" of his role in overturning Roe, and has often taken credit for selecting the justices who overturned Roe, a decades-long dream of abortion opponents.

"Drawing the throughline, making it very clear to folks this was avoidable, this is how it happened, ... making it really clear that Donald Trump is responsible, is a really important point to drive for the administration and campaign," said Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All, a key abortion rights group that has endorsed Biden.

Most Americans are not single-issue voters, she said, but abortion remains a compelling topic for many, and the Biden campaign's push will reach "volunteers, supporters, independents and undecided and Republican voters who care about this issue."

At the White House taskforce meeting, Biden will "hear directly from physicians on the frontlines of the fallout" and announce new steps to improve access to contraception and medical abortion, an official said.

Jennifer Klein, who heads the White House Gender Policy Council, said Republican officials increasingly think "they can message their way out of their support for ... extreme policies."

"But no attempt to rebrand can change the fact that ... when Roe was overturned, Republican elected officials got what they wanted — and they are not stopping there," she said.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Heather Timmons and Richard Chang)

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