VP Harris visits Florida as abortion ban limits southern women's options

[May 01, 2024]  By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visits Florida on Wednesday to denounce the state's six-week abortion ban that takes effect on May 1, and will accuse Republican opponent Donald Trump of being responsible for it.

Florida's Supreme Court cleared the way for a six-week abortion ban, a time-frame before many women realize they are pregnant, in early April. The court also said a ballot measure legalizing abortion until viability could be voted on this November, which could benefit Democrats at the polls.

Harris will visit Jacksonville, a Democratic outpost, blame former President Trump for eliminating abortion rights in the state and talk about harm inflicted by state abortion bans, a campaign official said.

“Today at the stroke of midnight, another Trump abortion ban went into effect here in Florida," Harris will say, according to excerpts release by the campaign.

"This ban applies to many women before they even know they are pregnant – which tells us the extremists who wrote this ban don’t even know how a woman’s body works. Or they just don’t care," she will say.

Biden declared "Florida is in play nationally" when he visited last week, indicating Democrats could try flip the state, which voted Republican in recent presidential elections.

The conservative U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe vs. Wade in 2022 opened the door for Florida and other states to set their own abortion laws. Trump campaigned in 2016 on adding judges who would overturn Roe and appointed three who did.

Harris has visited more than 20 states to push for reproductive freedom and also made a historic trip to an abortion clinic in March.

Abortion is a top issue in the 2024 election. Democrats believe harsh restrictions such as those in Florida and Arizona, which earlier this month upheld a 160-year-old abortion ban, will push voters to back Biden. U.S. voters overwhelmingly reject strict abortion bans, polls and state ballot initiatives show.

The Republican-controlled Arizona House approved a repeal of an 1864 abortion law and the state Senate will vote on it on Wednesday.

WOMEN IN U.S. SOUTH, SOUTHEAST HAVE FEW OPTIONS

Abortion access is now almost non-existent in Southern states. Florida had been a refuge for abortion-seekers from states such as Alabama and Georgia until April's ban passed.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris looks on during a roundtable on criminal justice in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, U.S. April 25, 2024. REUTERS/Bonnie Cash/File Photo

In 2023 about 7,700 of some 84,000 abortions performed in Florida were for out-of-state residents, nearly 60% higher than two years earlier, state data show. About half of the state's 50 clinics operate independently from larger groups such as Planned Parenthood. Several told Reuters they are not sure how long they can stay open after the ban.

On a Democratic National Committee call on Tuesday, chairs of the Democratic Party from Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia attacked Trump and said Republican curbs on reproductive rights would galvanize voters.

"Access to reproductive healthcare is now effectively eliminated across the South," said Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried.

"Donald Trump owns this. Period," said Congresswoman and Georgia party chair Nikema Williams.

Virginia Chair Susan Swecker said she is "overcome by anger" that women have to travel to her state, the only one in the southeast where abortions are legal. North Carolina's chairwoman Anderson Clayton said " Trump and MAGA Republicans are also coming for IVF treatment, contraception and our healthcare."

Trump has muddied his stance on the issue in recent weeks. The Republican distanced himself from Arizona's ruling even as he took credit for appointing the three Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and made state restrictions possible.

Florida has a hefty 30 Electoral College votes and for a long time was a highly coveted battleground state, but Republicans have pulled away from Democrats there in recent years.

Some Biden aides think that his and the party's optimism it could win the state could be misplaced. A compilation of opinion polls by FiveThirtyEight, the election data website, shows Trump with a substantial lead in the state.

Trump won Florida in 2020 with 51.2% of the vote compared with Biden's 47.9%. In 2022, Republican Ron DeSantis won the governors race in a landslide, with 59.4% of the vote.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Heather Timmons and Gerry Doyle)

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