In events next week, the president and vice president will argue that abortion access is crucial to personal freedoms, and warn of what is at stake if Donald J. Trump is re-elected.
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Supporters of abortion rights demonstrating inside the Wisconsin State Capitol last year.
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will headline events next week centered around protecting abortion rights, throwing more heft behind an issue that has galvanized voters in the 18 months since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.
On Monday, Ms. Harris will visit Wisconsin to begin a national tour focused on preserving access to reproductive health care as Republicans call for more restrictions. Then on Tuesday, she will join Mr. Biden at a rally for abortion rights in Virginia, where Democrats recently took control of the state legislature and have proposed to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution.
Ms. Harris offered a preview of the administration’s election-year messaging to Americans when she visited “The View,” the most popular daytime talk show in the country.
“We are not asking anyone to abandon their personal beliefs,” she said during an appearance on Wednesday, adding that “the government should not be telling women what to do with their bodies.”
The idea that preserving access to abortion is tantamount to preserving personal freedoms has been embraced by Biden administration officials, lawmakers and activists who hope it will energize a flagging base and draw independent voters into the fold. They also want to contrast the administration’s policies with the political peril that the Republican Party faces by embracing hard-line measures.
“I start from the place that most Americans believe that women should have the freedom to make their own decisions about health care, including abortion, without government interference,” Senator Tina Smith, Democrat of Minnesota, who traveled to the Iowa caucuses as a surrogate for Mr. Biden, said in an interview. (About 69 percent of voters think abortion should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy, according to a Gallup poll last year.)
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Source: nytimes.com
