When President Joe Biden gave bumbling remarks about abortion on the debate stage this summer, it was widely viewed as a missed opportunity — a failure, even — on a powerful and motivating issue for Democrats at the ballot box.
The difference was stark, then, on Tuesday night, when Vice President Kamala Harris gave a forceful defense of abortion rights during her presidential debate with Republican Donald Trump.
Harris conveyed the dire medical situations women have found themselves in since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the national right to abortion in 2022. Harris quickly placed blamed directly on Trump, who recalibrated the Supreme Court to the conservative majority that issued the landmark ruling during his term.
Women, Harris told the national audience, have been denied care as a result.
“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 health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot?” Harris said.
Biden was far from my choice, too, but I’d have voted for his corpse to keep the fascists out of office. Harris is a no-brainer. I hope she keeps bringing up the abortion issue in the personal, relatable way she did in this debate, with specific, verifiable examples of the real human toll the right-wing cruelty has wrought.
Women and girls unable to get care because hospitals are afraid of litigation, women forced to become walking coffins. She’s right, it’s unconscionable.