Reproductive rights organizations were quick to voice their support for Vice President Kamala Harris as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee after President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he would drop out of the presidential race and endorse Harris.
Harris could be an even stronger advocate for reproductive health care than President Biden, who has been hesitant to speak directly about abortion during his presidency. Biden, a practicing Catholic, has said that He is not “a big supporter of abortion” and even opposed it in his early days as a senator, but his views have evolved over the years.
“We’re incredibly excited to have someone with a long history of fighting for abortion access as a potential Democratic presidential nominee,” Nourbese Flint, president of All* Above All, a group that supports public insurance coverage for abortion, said in an interview with WIRED.
Elisa Wells, co-founder of the nonprofit Plan C, which provides information on self-managed at-home abortions using pills, told WIRED she hopes Harris will show “strong leadership” on reproductive rights and have a “bold agenda” to restore legal access to abortion.
“Abortion rights groups will surely be pleased to have a candidate who will campaign vigorously for access to reproductive health care,” Larry Levitt, executive vice president of health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health care research organization, wrote in an email to WIRED.
Access to abortion has declined across the United States following the 2022 reversal of the Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wadethe landmark 50-year-old case that protected the right to abortion. Three justices appointed by former President Donald Trump — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — were among the five who formed the majority opinion to overturn RoeThe decision opened the door for states to ban abortion altogether and More than a dozen have done so.
Since the decision was made, Vice President Harris has become the Biden administration’s voice on reproductive rights. In January, she embarked on a national tour to highlight the harm caused by state abortion bans. Speech at the start of that tourHarris recounted an event in high school that led her to become a prosecutor specializing in crimes against women and children: She learned that one of her best friends was being sexually abused by his stepfather.
In her speech, she referred to abortion access as a “health care crisis” and told the story of a Wisconsin couple, Meaghan and Joe, who discovered they were pregnant and that the fetus had a serious genetic disorder that put Meaghan’s life at risk. Meaghan was unable to obtain an abortion in Wisconsin and ultimately had to travel to Minnesota for care.
At the event, Harris said the Biden administration was fighting to protect women’s access to reproductive care. “We trust women. We trust women to make decisions about their own bodies. We trust women to know what’s best for them,” she said.
