Democrats center abortion stories at DNC in split from Biden and Trump
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Kamala Harris at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 19. Photo: Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images
The first night of the Democratic National Convention on Monday was punctuated by powerful reminders of the election's stakes after several women took the stage to share how abortion bans had impacted their lives.
Why it matters: Abortion has consistently been a winning issue for Democrats in midterm and state elections since the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade.
- While the Biden campaign also pushed abortion as a central issue, Vice President Harris has long been one of the administration's strongest messengers on the issue, and the DNC's programming reflected her franker approach to discussing abortion rights.
Driving the news: Amanda Zurawski, joined by her husband, spoke about her near-death experience after her water broke at 18 weeks and she was denied an abortion to treat her inviable pregnancy for days, until she developed sepsis.
- Hadley Duvall, who was raped and impregnated by her stepfather at 12 years old, spoke about the pain she felt at the prospect of having been denied an abortion.
- "What is so beautiful about a child having to carry her parent's child?" Duvall asked the audience, taking aim at Trump's description of leaving abortion restrictions to the states as a "beautiful thing."
- Kaitlyn Joshua spoke about her experience being denied miscarriage care in the form of an abortion at two hospitals due to Louisiana's abortion ban.
The big picture: Harris has notably differed from Biden in her openness to freely using the word "abortion" when discussing reproductive rights.
- Biden, a practicing Catholic, has long made clear his personal discomfort with abortion even as he defended abortion rights.
- Biden has at times displayed a reticence to say the word "abortion." Even during his State of the Union address in March, where the issue took center stage. Biden instead referred to "reproductive freedom" and "freedom to choose" in his remarks.
Between the lines: Kelly Baden, vice president for public policy at the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that support abortion rights, believes that Americans appreciate directness from their elected officials when it comes to discussing abortion.
- "People want to get specific about what we're talking about when we talk about what people need in order to live ... free and full lives," Baden told Axios.
- Being able to say "abortion" and spotlighting the stories of everyday Americans who have gotten abortion care help underscore the connections between abortion rights and other reproductive issues voters care about, like IVF and maternal mortality, Baden said.
State of play: Multiple polls have shown that the majority of Americans support abortion rights as well as other reproductive issues, like access to IVF.
- In June, Senate Republicans blocked a bill aimed at ensuring federal protections for IVF.
- "Nearly eight in 10 people want abortion to be legal, and the issue will only become more salient for folks as it begins to affect them and their families personally," Shwetika Baijal, senior director of elections and accountability for Planned Parenthood Votes, told Axios.
The other side: Former President Trump has insisted that abortion regulations should be left up to the states to decide in the wake of the Dobbs decision.
- He has also repeatedly boasted about his role in appointing conservative justices to help overturn Roe v. Wade.
- Yet at last month's Republican National Convention, many of the speakers who took the stage — including Trump and his running-mate Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) — didn't mention abortion.
- And despite abortion's track record as a galvanizing issue for voters, Trump predicted at a press conference earlier this month that abortion would not be a "big factor" in the 2024 election.
Zoom in: When asked whether its view on the matter had changed, the Trump campaign referred Axios to Trump's interview on CBS News Monday, in which the former president affirmed he had "no regrets" about Roe's reversal and that abortion restrictions should rest with the states.
- Baden said abortion was "always going to be an issue in the national conversation" in 2024, given that it's the first national election since the Dobbs decision.
- Baijal made a similar argument.
- "Trump is lying at worst and delusional at best," she said. "He wants to pretend that abortion does not matter to people, to the country, because he loses on that issue, even though he is to blame for the current reproductive crisis."
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