Harris: Abortion limits create ‘health care crisis’
Vice president is thought to be first to make official visit to a clinic
Vice President Kamala Harris described the flood of laws restricting abortion access as a “health care crisis” as she visited with abortion providers and staff members Thursday at a clinic in St. Paul.
The stop by Harris at the Planned Parenthood clinic was believed to be the first official visit by a vice president to an abortion clinic. No presidents are known to have made such a visit, either.
Speaking to reporters in the lobby of the clinic, which was open and seeing patients, Harris assailed conservative “extremists” for passing laws that restrict abortion, resulting in the denial of emergency care for pregnant women and the shuttering of clinics that provide reproductive health care beyond abortion.
“These attacks against an individual’s right to make decisions about their own body are outrageous and, in many instances, just plain old immoral,” she said. “How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need, to tell women what is in their best interest. We have to be a nation that trusts women.”
The image alone of the nation’s second-ranking leader walking into an abortion clinic provided a vivid illustration of how the politics of abortion rights have transformed since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. In the lobby was a map showing Planned Parenthood clinics in Minnesota and neighboring states. Minnesota had by far the most, with a few in Iowa. Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota were almost bare — all have restricted abortion access since the overturning of Roe.
For decades, many Democrats viewed affirmative support for abortion rights as a political risk, fearing such a position could alienate more moderate voters who were uncomfortable with open discussion of the procedure. The party embraced cautious slogans such as “safe, legal and rare” and policies including banning taxpayer funding of abortions.
But the fall of Roe upended those politics, energizing a new generation of voters around their support for abortion rights. The issue has become one of the Democrats’ biggest strengths, party strategists say. In campaign speeches, as he did in his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden casts the issue of abortion rights as one of personal freedom and the right to make private health care decisions.
Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who has been surveying voters about abortion for more than four decades, said she could not recall a time when abortion rights were as motivating for their voters.
“It’s the No. 1 issue working for Democrats at every level in office,” Lake said. “Everything from county commissioners to presidents are being elected around this issue.”
After little discussion of abortion during Biden’s 2020 campaign, his strategists are embracing the issue. They’ve run ads featuring the testimonials of women denied access to the procedure in conservative states and attacked former President Donald Trump for appointing three of the justices who voted to overturn Roe.
Democrats’ efforts have been helped by a steady drumbeat of litigation, legislation and court decisions in conservative states that restrict not only abortion but also other aspects of reproductive health, including contraception and fertility treatments.
Tresa Undem, a pollster who tracks public opinion about abortion, said those actions had changed how voters — particularly women — view the role of government in their reproductive health care.
Recent polling from KFF, a nonprofit group focused on health policy, found that 86% of female voters of reproductive age say decisions about abortions should be made by a woman, in consultation with her doctor. Broad majorities also want laws guaranteeing a national right to abortion, access to abortion for patients facing pregnancy-related emergencies and the right to travel to get an abortion.
Biden has promised to restore federal abortion rights and preserve access to medication abortion, which faces new threats from a case set to be argued before the Supreme Court this month. But he has still expressed some uneasiness with the procedure itself, often avoiding uttering the word “abortion.”