Vice President Kamala Harris’ willingness to speak freely about abortion could mark a turning point in the national conversation about women’s health, experts said Monday, a day after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election.
“She talks about abortion rights, and she talks about it unapologetically,” said Kelly Baden, vice president for public policy at the Guttmacher Institute, a nongovernmental research organization that works to expand reproductive rights. “She makes the connection between all facets of reproductive health care and abortion rights.”
Study after study has found that lack of access to abortion care has far-reaching health consequences.
States with strict abortion policies tend to have higher rates of infant and maternal mortality. Women living in those states are less likely to be able to access OB/GYNs or even have the ability to pay for appointments. And increasingly, medical students say abortion laws are driving them away from pursuing careers as doctors in states where the procedure is banned.
Harris has highlighted the fallout during multiple campaign trips this year, including a visit in March at a Planned Parenthood in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is the first vice president (or president) to visit a clinic that provides abortions.
“Vice President Harris has made this an incredibly important part of her work on the campaign trail. What this means, fundamentally, is that it’s going to get a lot more attention,” said Christina Reynolds, senior vice president for communications and content at EMILY’s List, an organization that supports pro-abortion-rights women in politics.
Harris is not yet the Democratic nominee for president. If that happens, experts expect her to lean heavily on the link between abortion rights and women’s health care.
“I expect to see her focus on one issue: abortion,” said Drew Altman, CEO of KFF, a nonprofit group that researches health policy issues. Altman said KFF polls find the topic “energizes voters more than anything else,” especially in states like Arizona, a key battleground state.
Jolynn Dellinger, a senior lecturing fellow at Duke Law in Durham, North Carolina, said Harris is “very comfortable talking about the extreme consequences that we have seen as a result of Dobbs.”
“She’s linking the inability to get abortion care in states that have criminalized abortion to the shutting down of clinics that provided other kinds of care, so now people can’t get that kind of care, either,” said Dellinger, who teaches and speaks about the consequences of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Biden, on the other hand, did not even use the word “abortion” when he addressed reproductive rights in his most recent State of the Union address. (Though he is pro-abortion-rights, Biden has said in the past that his Catholic faith makes him uncomfortable with abortion.)
And the issue got few mentions at the recent Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Former President Donald Trump’s son Eric seemed to dismiss the topic of abortion when NBC “TODAY” show host Savannah Guthrie asked him about the Republican platform’s no longer calling for a federal abortion ban.
“At the end of the day, this country has real holes in the roof. And you’ve got to fix those holes, and you’ve got to stop worrying about the little spot on the wall in the basement,” he said.
The platform, however, does still include language about the 14th Amendment, saying states are “free to pass Laws protecting those rights.” In pushing for fetal personhood, anti-abortion-rights activists often cite the amendment, which says that “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, suggested during a 2022 debate that he would support a national ban on abortion. This spring, however, he said states should have the final say on their abortion policies.
In a statement, Kristan Hawkins, president of the anti-abortion-rights group Students for Life Action, said Eric Trump’s response was “disappointing,” adding that the movement’s “greatest adversaries are the abortion bullies who have run Washington D.C. under the Democratic Party rule.”
“Still, the GOP can and must do better,” she said.
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, voters have backed protecting abortion rights in response to ballot measures in at least seven states. This year, at least six states will have pro-abortion-rights measures on their ballots. Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy for Students for Life Action, said she sees the initiatives as an effort to bolster the Democratic ticket. But she expects the measures to mobilize voters who are against abortion rights, as well.
“I do think that one result of Biden being now gone from the race is that it does elevate the life issue in that the Democrats want more abortion and the Republicans, we believe and hope, want less,” Hamrick said.
If Harris becomes the Democratic nominee, it is likely that the GOP will be forced to address the abortion issue.
Talking about access to abortion care has been “a winning card” for Harris so far, said Altman, of KFF. “I would expect to see her dial that up tremendously.”
