Virginia [US]: As voting for the New Hampshire primary began on Tuesday (local time), US President Joe Biden and his deputy Kamala Harris will be rallying voters in Virginia on abortion rights, seeking to emphasise the stakes for reproductive rights in 2024, CNN reported.
This is the first election since the US Supreme Court overturned the federal constitutional right to abortion.
Notably, this is the first time the president and vice president will hit the trail together in 2024.
At the rally, which comes one day after what would have been the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade, Biden, Harris and their spouses will “underscore what is at stake for reproductive freedom in 2024 — including the threat of a MAGA Republican-led national abortion ban — and President Biden’s commitment to codifying the protections of Roe into law,” according to a campaign announcement.
The Biden campaign is banking on abortion rights being one of the pivotal issues driving voters out against the GOP nominee in November.
According to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS after the ruling, nearly two-thirds of Americans said they disagreed with the decision.
Biden’s campaign has also been slamming former President Trump for taking credit for the decision that overturned Roe.
The former president faces a crucial night Tuesday in New Hampshire in his two-person race against Nikki Haley for the Republican nomination.
Harris, the administration’s point person on abortion rights, kicked off a “reproductive freedoms tour” this week with a Monday stop in Wisconsin. She is expected to travel “across the country” to hold a number of events bringing together “thousands of people,” her office stated.
“Freedom is not to be given,” Harris said in Wisconsin on Monday, speaking to hundreds of attendees, most of whom were women. “It is not to be bestowed. It is ours by right, and that includes the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body without anyone telling you what to do.”
She referred to the three ‘conservative’ justices placed on the Supreme Court by Trump, which played a role in the judgement, and said the former president intended “for them to take your freedom, and it is a decision he bragged about a couple of weeks ago.”
Harris also echoed similar thoughts during an interview with CNN, where she attacked Trump, accusing him of being “proud” of depriving women of their fundamental rights.
“By inference, he is proud that women have been deprived of fundamental freedoms to make decisions about their own body; by inference, proud that doctors are being penalized and criminalized for providing health care, proud that women are silently suffering because they don’t have access to the health care they need,” Harris said.
“So, let’s understand that the stakes are so very high,” she added.
