Joe Biden and Kamala Harris blast ‘extremist’ Republicans in abortion vote battle

The Democrat President and Vice-President see the issue as a powerful vote-winner against Don­ald Trump.

‘How dare he’: Kamala Harris speaks in Big Bend, Wisconsin. Picture: AFP

US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris on Monday put abortion rights at the centre of their re-election campaigns, attacking Republicans over an issue Democrats see as a powerful vote-winner against Don­ald Trump.

“How dare he?” Ms Harris said of the former president, who has boasted of his role in overturning the constitutional, federal right to abortion, as she travelled to Wisconsin at the start of a nationwide tour on the issue.

Mr Biden, meanwhile, railed at “extremist” and “cruel” Republicans in a speech at the White House marking the 51st anniver­sary of Roe v Wade, the judgment legalising abortion that the ­conservative-leaning US Supreme Court overturned in 2022.

Ms Harris and Mr Biden warned that Republicans would impose a nationwide abortion ban if the party were to win the presidential election.

Already, 21 states have brought in full or partial bans since the Supreme Court – on which three Trump-appointed justices tilted the balance to the right – issued its ruling.

“These extremists are trying to take us backwards. We are not having it,” Ms Harris, 51, said to a cheering crowd in Big Bend in Wisconsin, which is expected to be one of the most closely fought states in this year’s election.

Democrats increasingly see the issue as a vote-winner after Mr Trump repeatedly said he was “proud” and took credit for the end to a federally protected right to abortion.

“Proud? Proud that women across our nation are suffering? Proud that women have been robbed of a fundamental freedom?” Ms Harris said.

“How dare he?”

Women attending the rally said the messages from Ms Harris and Mr Biden were important.

“I don’t know there’s any laws that regulate what a man can do with his body, so why is a man trying to tell a woman what she should be able to do with her body?” Corinda Rainey-Moore, a community outreach organiser, told Agence France-Presse.

Irene Parthum, a retired former district attorney, said she supported the Democrats’ stance because of “my daughter and hopefully her daughter someday. I want them to have the same rights I had.”

The Supreme Court decision has left millions of American women without access to abortion. Fourteen US states have imposed outright bans on abortion since the ruling, while seven others have imposed time limits. The Biden campaign has launched a blitz on the issue this week, seeing it as a potential weakness for Mr Trump in particular as he heads for a likely rematch against Mr Biden.

Meeting his reproductive rights taskforce at the White House, Mr Biden repeatedly described the Republicans as “extreme” on abortion. “The cruelty is astounding,” he said. “Today, in 2024, in America, women are turned way from emergency rooms, forced to travel hundreds of miles to get basic healthcare.”

Mr Biden called abortion bans in cases of rape or incest “outrageous,” highlighting life sentences for doctors in Texas who carry out abortions, and plans in Alabama to prosecute people who help others cross state lines for terminations.

The White House focus on abortion rights continues on Tuesday when Ms Harris and Mr Biden will make their first joint appearance on the 2024 campaign trail with a major rally in Virginia. The Biden campaign said it was also launching television and social media ads targeting swing voters in battleground states, focusing on the “personal impact Mr Trump’s abortion bans have on women”.

The issue is a seismic fault line in US politics. Polls repeatedly show a clear majority of Americans support continued access to safe abortion, even as conservative groups push to limit the procedure or ban it outright. Mr Biden is a devout Catholic but in recent years the 81-year-old has taken on a role as the defender of women’s reproductive freedoms. Ms Harris is increasingly becoming the campaign’s face on the abortion issue, giving her an opportunity to combat low approval ratings.

AFP