Mother Jones illustration; Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty
Vice President Kamala Harris just showed why she is a better candidate on abortion than President Biden ever was.
In a blistering response to former President Donald Trump’s rambling about his ever-shifting stance on abortion—which included appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overruled Roe v. Wade—Harris put the ex-president on blast for what she has been calling the “Trump abortion bans” now present in over a dozen states.
“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” Harris said.
Kamala Harris’ full response on abortion pic.twitter.com/QEVkM5WjkR
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 11, 2024
And when Trump repeated his false claim that “every legal scholar” wanted Roe overruled, Harris promptly laid out the devastating consequences of the Dobbs decision.
“Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she is bleeding out in a car in the parking lot—she didn’t want that. Her husband didn’t want that,” Harris said.
“A 12 or 13 year old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term—they don’t want that,” she continued. Harris pledged to sign legislation restoring Roe into law if Congress passed it during her presidency—and noted that Trump could very well sign a national abortion ban if reelected, as Project 2025 recommends.
“Understand, in his Project 2025, there would be a national abortion monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages,” she said. “I think the American people believe that certain freedoms—in particular, the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body—should not be made by the government.”
Tonight, Harris showed exactly why abortion rights advocates see her as their ideal messenger: In clear and forceful language, she described the health care apocalypse Trump helped create, and the first-hand experiences of pregnant people bearing the brunt of it. When Biden talked about abortion during the first debate, on the other hand, it was a garbled, confusing mess that ended with him talking about immigration.
But in fairness, Trump was also clear about his stance on abortion: When asked two different times, he refused to answer whether he would veto a federal abortion ban if Congress passed one.
