VP Kamala Harris on abortion during the debate
Blog | September 10, 2024
Tonight, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered an excellent argument against the incredible damage that a second Trump administration could have on our nation’s reproductive health care police and abortion access in every state in America. This section represented the most in-depth and medically accurate discussion of abortion access ever delivered by any American nominee for president ever.
She said:
“Let’s understand how we got here. Donald Trump hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v Wade, and they did exactly as he intended.
“Now, in over 20 states, there are Trump abortion bans which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide health care in one state. It provides prison for life. Trump abortion bans that make no exception, even for rape and incest, which — understand what that means — a survivor of a crime, a violation to their body, does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral, and one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree.
“The government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body. I have talked with women around our country. You want to talk about ‘this is what people wanted.’? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage.
“Being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail. She’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot. She didn’t want that. Her husband didn’t want that. A 12 or 13 year old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. They don’t want that.
“I pledge to you, when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v Wade as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.
“But understand, if Donald Trump were to be reelected, he will sign a national abortion ban. Understand in this Project 2025, there would be a national abortion ban, a monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages. I think the American people believe that certain freedoms, in particular the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body, should not be made by the government.”
And she concluded:
“I absolutely support reinstating the protections of Roe v Wade. And as you rightly mentioned, nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening. It’s insulting to the women of America. And I understand what has been happening under Donald Trump’s abortion bans. Couples who pray and dream of having a family are being denied IVF treatments.
“What is happening in our country working people, working women who are working 1 or 2 jobs, who can barely afford childcare as it is, have to travel to another state to get on the plane, sitting next to strangers to go and get the health care she needs and barely can afford to do it. What you are putting her through is unconscionable.
“That the majority of Americans believe in a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body. That is why in every state where this issue has been on the ballot in red and blue states, both the people of America have voted for freedom.”
