Vice President Harris is leaning into abortion rights as a closing argument within the remaining days earlier than the election, and can head to Texas this week to spotlight the state as “floor zero of the nation’s excessive abortion bans.”
Harris doesn’t anticipate to win the deep purple state, however the marketing campaign desires to hammer dwelling its message that former President Trump is a menace to girls.
At a rally in Houston, Harris can be joined by girls who’ve confronted the direct impacts of Texas’s ban. Texas was one of many first states to limit abortion when its “heartbeat invoice” took impact in September 2021, banning abortion after the detection of fetal cardiac exercise — which is often six weeks right into a being pregnant, earlier than many individuals are even conscious they’re pregnant.
On the time the legislation handed, it was probably the most restrictive abortion legislation within the nation. After the Supreme Courtroom’s 2022 Dobbs choice that overturned Roe v. Wade and eradicated the federal proper to an abortion, dozens of different states enacted comparable and even stricter legal guidelines. Texas now bans abortion nearly solely.
Holding an occasion centered solely on abortion in a politically unfriendly state lower than two weeks earlier than the election exhibits the Harris marketing campaign believes it might harness anger at abortion bans and switch it into votes. Abortion routinely polls as among the many prime considerations for voters, nevertheless it hasn’t at all times been the first problem.
Former President Trump repeatedly brags about his function in getting Roe overturned, and the rally is a part of the Harris marketing campaign’s effort to raise the difficulty and tie the results of state abortion bans straight again to him. Greater than 1 in 3 girls reside in a state that bans abortion.
The journey to Texas brings Harris full circle in her effort to maintain abortion rights entrance and heart for voters. Two years in the past this month, Harris went to Texas for an occasion to spotlight the impression of the Dobbs choice.
Within the Dobbs aftermath, Harris traveled the nation to satisfy with activists, suppliers and other people impacted by abortion bans, cementing herself because the Biden administration’s foremost messenger on abortion.
The Harris marketing campaign has additionally been deploying surrogates to spotlight abortion entry, together with Texas resident Amanda Zurawski, who led a lawsuit towards the Texas legislation after she was denied an abortion and almost died from being pregnant problems.
Harris has additionally appeared with Kate Cox, who fled the state after the Texas Supreme Courtroom denied her an emergency abortion.
