VP Harris visits Florida as abortion ban limits women's options
Last edited Wed May 1, 2024, 06:15 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: Reuters
May 1, 2024 3:02 PM EDT Updated 3 hours ago
JACKSONVILLE, Florida, May 1 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris sought to blame Republican candidate Donald Trump for Florida's six-week abortion ban that took effect on Wednesday, saying his Supreme Court picks when he was president cleared the way for the policy. The remarks in Jacksonville, Florida, were the latest effort by Harris and President Joe Biden to keep their re-election focus on abortion rights, an issue Democrats are hoping will galvanize voters to pick them.
"Today, this very day, at the stroke of midnight, another Trump abortion ban went into effect here in Florida. As of this morning 4 million women in this state woke up with fewer reproductive freedoms than they did last night. This is the new reality under a Trump abortion ban," Harris said.
Florida's top court this month cleared the way for a six-week abortion ban, a time-frame before many women realize they are pregnant. It also said a ballot measure legalizing abortion until viability could be voted on this November, which could benefit Democrats in an election where abortion is a top issue nationwide.
Biden declared "Florida is in play nationally" when he visited last week, indicating Democrats could try to flip the state, which voted Republican in recent presidential elections. The conservative U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe vs. Wade in 2022 opened the door for Florida and other states to set their own abortion laws. Trump campaigned in 2016 on adding judges who would overturn Roe and appointed three who did.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/vp-harris-visits-florida-abortion-ban-limits-southern-womens-options-2024-05-01/
Article updated.
Original article/headline -
May 1, 2024 5:13 AM EDT Updated 38 min ago
WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visits Florida on Wednesday to denounce the state's six-week abortion ban that takes effect on May 1, and will accuse Republican opponent Donald Trump of being responsible for it.
Florida's Supreme Court cleared the way for a six-week abortion ban, a time-frame before many women realize they are pregnant, in early April. The court also said a ballot measure legalizing abortion until viability could be voted on this November, which could benefit Democrats at the polls.
Harris will visit Jacksonville, a Democratic outpost, blame former President Trump for eliminating abortion rights in the state and talk about harm inflicted by state abortion bans, a campaign official said. “Today at the stroke of midnight, another Trump abortion ban went into effect here in Florida," Harris will say, according to excerpts release by the campaign.
"This ban applies to many women before they even know they are pregnant – which tells us the extremists who wrote this ban don’t even know how a woman’s body works. Or they just don’t care," she will say. Biden declared "Florida is in play nationally" when he visited last week, indicating Democrats could try flip the state, which voted Republican in recent presidential elections.
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Repuke lawmakers pass a lot of ill-informed abortion ban laws, but I think they know exactly what they're doing when they pass a 6 week ban like this one.
They know good and well that most women won't find out they're pregnant in time to beat such an early deadline, and that's a feature, not a bug. Just as with the laws that mandate things like multiple clinic vists and waiting periods between the initial visit and the second one, the idea is to make getting an abortion as difficult and inconvenient as possible. They figure that if they make it hard enough, a lot of women will be forced to give up, and they consider thst a win.
6 week bans are especially insidious, because they're based on the lie that abortion isn't really being banned altogether. No, a 6 week deadline for abortion isn't technically banning abortion outright, but it amounts to a de facto ban, because so few women will be able to find out they're pregnant in time. Pretty ingenious when you think about it.
Forced birthers don't know much about how a woman’s body works, but they know enough to set an abortion deadline too early for most women to be able to beat it. Their dishonesty is disgraceful. These lily-livered lawmakers should have the guts to admit what their end goal really is and make laws accordingly instead of playing games.
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