The vice president’s dramatic formal visit to a Planned Parenthood facility highlighted the ways in which reproductive rights are affecting voter turnout and energizing voters on both sides.
It was, in all likelihood, the most overt move the Biden administration could have made in the political battle over abortion, birth control, and IVF. Vice President Kamala Harris took a hard line in the fight for reproductive rights on Thursday by visiting a Planned Parenthood facility in St. Paul, Minnesota, following several speeches on the subject.
Harris stated, “Attacks against an individual’s right to make decisions about their own body are outrageous, and in many cases, just plain old immoral,” during what the White House claimed was the first official speech by a sitting president or vice president.
Harris’ visit was a striking departure from the traditional Democratic dogma that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” The choice to highlight the reality of abortion – and the locations where it is conducted – echoed the cautionary message President Joe Biden and Harris are making to otherwise uninterested voters: Republicans who are committed to restricting abortion want to abolish the process totally.
While polling reveals that abortion is not the most important issue for most Americans when they vote this November, it is evident that reproductive rights are impacting turnout and motivating pro-abortion and female voters.
This has energized Democrats while frustrating those anti-abortion Republicans who want their party to give a softer, more genuinely “pro-life” transmission to defend women and kids of all ages.
