Â鶹´«Ã½

Skip to main content

'Everything is at stake' for reproductive rights in 2024, Kamala Harris says as Biden-Trump debate nears

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at Planned Parenthood, March. 14, 2024, in St. Paul, Minn. Harris says "everything is at stake" with reproductive health rights in November's presidential election. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher, File) Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at Planned Parenthood, March. 14, 2024, in St. Paul, Minn. Harris says "everything is at stake" with reproductive health rights in November's presidential election. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher, File)
Share
WASHINGTON, D.C. -

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris says "everything is at stake" with reproductive health rights in November's election as the Biden campaign steps up its focus on contrasting the positions taken by Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump on the issue before their debate this week.

Harris comments come as the campaign announced it would hold more than 50 events in battleground states and beyond to mark Monday's second anniversary of the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision that overturned the federal legal right to an abortion. Biden and his allies are trying to remind voters that the landmark decision in 2022 was made by a high court that included three conservative justices nominated during Trump's White House tenure.

"Every person of whatever gender should understand that, if such a fundamental freedom such as the right to make decisions about your own body can be taken, be aware of what other freedoms may be at stake," Harris said in a joint MSNBC interview with Hadley Duvall, an abortion rights advocate from Kentucky who was raped by her stepfather as a child. Part of the interview aired Sunday.

The Biden campaign believes that abortion rights can be a galvanizing issue in what is expected to be a close general election.

Trump has taken credit for Dobbs with his conservative base while stopping short of supporting a national abortion ban sought by supporters on the religious right, should he return to the White House.

In April, Trump said he believed the issue should be left to the states. He later stated in an interview that he would not sign a nationwide ban on abortion if it was passed by Congress. He has declined to detail his position on women's access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

At a campaign event Saturday, Trump said his administration did "something that was amazing" with Dobbs, while acknowledging the political peril of pressing further on the issue at the moment.

"Every voter has to go with your heart and do what's right, but we also have to get elected," he said.

Biden has begun private preparations at Camp David for the debate Thursday night in Atlanta. Trump is expected to hold meetings at his Florida estate this week as part of an informal prep process.

Duvall of Owensboro, Ky., first told her story publicly last fall in a campaign ad for the governor's race in her home state, discussing the consequences of abortion restrictions, particularly those without exceptions for rape or incest.

First lady Jill Biden planned to hold a campaign event with Duvall in Pittsburgh on Sunday evening. Harris is scheduled to mark Monday's anniversary of the Dobbs decision with campaign events in Arizona and Maryland. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, is headed to Michigan on Monday.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was heading to Wisconsin on behalf of the Biden campaign with Amanda Zurawski, a Texas woman who was initially denied an abortion after being told she had a condition that meant her baby would not survive. Zurawski was forced to wait until she was diagnosed with a life-threatening case of sepsis before being provided an abortion.

"If there is a woman who is in that reproductive age, then her life is at stake during this election," Duvall said in the MSNBC interview. "And it does not matter if you have never voted Democrat in your life. It's (time to) get off your high horse, because women, we don't get to choose a whole lot, and you at least can choose who you can vote for."

The Associated Press does not normally identify sexual assault victims, but Duvall, 22, chose to be identified and has spoken out publicly about her experience and its connection to the debate over abortion.

CTVNews.ca Top Stories

British Columbia saw a rare unanimous vote in its legislature in October 2019, when members passed a law adopting the United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, setting out standards including free, prior and informed consent for actions affecting them.

A pedestrian has died after reportedly getting struck by an OPP cruiser in Bala early Sunday morning.

Two and a half years after losing her best friend and first love to suicide, Brooke Ford shared her story of grief and resilience at the CMHA Windsor-Essex Suicide Awareness Walk.

opinion

opinion How to make the most out of your TFSA

The Tax-Free Savings Account can be a powerful savings tool and investment vehicle. Financial contributor Christopher Liew explains how they work and how to take full advantage of them so you can reach your financial goals faster.

Local Spotlight

A tale about a taxicab hauling gold and sinking through the ice on Larder Lake, Ont., in December 1937 has captivated a man from that town for decades.

When a group of B.C. filmmakers set out on a small fishing boat near Powell River last week, they hoped to capture some video for a documentary on humpback whales. What happened next blew their minds.

A pizza chain in Edmonton claims to have the world's largest deliverable pizza.

Sarah McLachlan is returning to her hometown of Halifax in November.

Wayne MacKay is still playing basketball twice at Mount Allison University at 87 years old.

A man from a small rural Alberta town is making music that makes people laugh.

An Indigenous artist has a buyer-beware warning ahead of Sept. 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Police are looking to the public for help after thieves broke into a Lethbridge ice creamery, stealing from the store.

An ordinary day on the job delivering mail in East Elmwood quickly turned dramatic for Canada Post letter carrier Jared Plourde. A woman on his route was calling out in distress.