President Biden will deliver a speech focused on reproductive rights in Tampa, Florida, on Tuesday, putting abortion front and center about a week before the state’s six-week ban takes effect.
Mr. Biden is expected to squarely hold former President Donald Trump responsible for state abortion restrictions, having repeatedly taken credit for appointing the Supreme Court justice who overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
The Biden campaign said the president intends to “forcefully advocate for reproductive freedom and defend Donald Trump’s abortion ban.”
The campaign has made abortion rights one of its top issues and aims to remind voters almost daily of Trump’s record on the issue.
Biden’s team has run ads featuring testimonies from women affected by state abortion bans, and Vice President Harris and other senior administration officials have crisscrossed the country to debate Republicans and Trump on abortion regulations. He harshly criticizes Mr.
President Trump has sought to neutralize Democrats’ claims, repeatedly saying in recent weeks that abortion policy decisions are left up to individual states and rejecting explicit calls for a national ban.
Earlier this month, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that there is no right to abortion in Florida, upholding the 15-week abortion ban, and the six-week abortion ban automatically goes into effect starting on the 30th. The former president was spurred into action. later.
Following the court’s abortion decision, the Biden campaign said it views Florida as a “winnable” state and aims to invest heavily to reverse the state. Biden will visit Florida for the first time since the verdict on Tuesday.
“Our advantage in the state is not just limited to abortion,” campaign communications director Michael Tyler told reporters on a call to preview the speech.
“Republicans in the state are attacking Social Security. They’re attacking Medicare. They’re making it easier for criminals to own guns. They’re banning books, they’re making it easier for black people to benefit from slavery, They rewrote history to say they attacked vulnerable communities. This all follows Donald Trump’s MAGA extremism model,” Tyler said.
Florida’s new law is one of the most restrictive in the country, with supporters arguing it amounts to a de facto total ban. Six weeks pass before many women realize they’re pregnant, and the state still requires two in-person appointments with a doctor. The abortion provider will contact her every 24 hours.
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The ban would effectively cut off access to abortion in the South, where neighboring countries already have near-total bans or severe restrictions on abortion.
But despite President Trump’s desire to move forward, Republicans nationwide and in states went on the defensive after getting exactly what they wanted when Roe was overturned. Opinion polls show a majority of voters oppose abortion bans, and Republicans have suffered a series of defeats at the polls when they are held accountable for abortion.
A day after President Trump’s comments, Republican-appointed Arizona Supreme Court justices reinstated an 1864 law that made it a felony to perform or facilitate an abortion. This law was first passed before Arizona became a state.
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