Vice President Kamala Harris plans to meet with abortion providers and staff in the Twin Cities on Thursday. This visit is believed to be the first visit by a president or vice president to an abortion clinic.
The appearance at a health center will be the final leg of a nationwide tour by Ms. Harris, who has emerged as the government’s most outspoken abortion rights advocate. While White House officials say they have largely reached the limits of their power in protecting abortion rights, the issue has emerged as a linchpin of their re-election strategy.
Ms. Harris plans to tour the center with an abortion provider on Thursday and highlight what the government has done to maintain access to the procedure as conservative states impose increasing restrictions.
Minnesota has become a haven for abortion seekers since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade repealed and thereby introduced restrictive laws and bans in neighboring states. The Society of Family Planning, a health research organization, found that the average number of abortions in the state increased by about 36 percent in the year after the Supreme Court decision.
Last year, Gov. Tim Walz signed legislation enshrining abortion rights in state law, ensuring the procedure remains legal no matter who takes office in the state. Ms. Harris will be joined on Thursday by Minnesota Democrats, including Mr. Walz and Rep. Betty McCollum.
The mere sight of a top Democratic official walking into an abortion clinic is the clearest example yet of how the politics of abortion rights have changed for the party — and the nation.
For decades, many Democrats shied away from direct discussion of what their strategists considered a contentious issue. Instead, a significant number focused on the complexity, embracing slogans like “safe, legal and rare” and joining Republicans in opposing taxpayer funding of the procedure through the Hyde Amendment.
But the Supreme Court’s decision, Roe v. Repealing Wade upended those old policies and created an energized coalition of voters that helped Democrats win a number of federal and state elections thanks to their support for abortion rights. A recent poll by KFF, a nonprofit group focused on health policy, found that one in five voters called abortion the “most important issue” when voting in 2024 and the majority supported a law guaranteeing a federal right to abortion.
President Biden’s campaign is focusing on abortion, running ads featuring testimonials from women denied access to the procedure in conservative states and highlighting former President Donald J. Trump’s role in appointing three of the justices, who voted to overturn Roe.
Mr. Biden has promised to restore federal abortion rights and maintain access to medication abortion, which faces new threats from a case set to be heard by the Supreme Court this month.
Those assurances represent a notable escalation of the matter by Mr. Biden, a devout Catholic who for decades has been torn between his religious opposition to the process and his party’s policies. He barely mentioned abortion rights during his 2020 campaign, a reflection of his discomfort with discussing the issue and how little his strategists believed abortion energized swing voters.
This time, Mr. Biden framed the issue as a matter of personal freedom and the right to make private health care decisions. But he still expressed some unease about the procedure itself, often avoiding saying the word “abortion.” In his State of the Union address, he called for the phrase “abortion” in his prepared remarks, in reference to a Texas woman who was unable to seek the procedure because of state law. Instead, he said Texas “denied her the ability to act.”
Mr. Biden prefers to discuss the issue in terms of restoring Roe through Congressional legislation. Given the slim Democratic majority in the Senate and divisions within the president’s party over the scope of such a bill, a law codifying abortion rights at the federal level would have little chance of passage.
Ms. Harris has taken a far more assertive approach. She has visited five states on a tour to talk about abortion rights, calling the spread of anti-abortion laws in Republican states a “health crisis” for women.
Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting.
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2024-03-14 02:44:15
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