Campaigning for Harris, Women Share Their Abortion Stories With Neighbors

One by one, the women shared their stories.

A middle-aged woman recounted how her developmentally disabled sister had been sexually assaulted at work, saying that carrying a child would “destroy her.” An operating room nurse wondered how she would care for her pregnant patients now that certain procedures were illegal. And an older woman recalled how she had taken a college friend for a “dehumanizing” back-alley abortion.

As they spoke, some began to wipe away tears. But the women, gathered on folding chairs in a Harris campaign office tucked away in a suburban Wisconsin strip mall, were determined. The group of about two dozen mostly female volunteers had assembled for a specific purpose: to learn how to take their experiences door to door.

“How are we actually going to use the stories that we just told?” asked Sammy Rasin, an organizer for the Harris campaign, standing in front of a wall of windows covered in Democratic campaign signs. “We elect Vice President Harris and Gov. Tim Walz.”

It was the kind of political conversation that happened only at the margins of the last presidential race, when Democrats last fought to keep former President Donald J. Trump from winning another term and abortion rights were barely mentioned. But now, two years after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Harris campaign see women and their experiences as one of their most potent political weapons in a razor-tight contest.

For months, Democrats have been training dozens of volunteers across battleground states to personally testify to the effects of Republican-led abortion restrictions enacted across the country since the overturning of Roe V. Wade two years ago. Some have taken on high-profile roles, appearing in television ads and prompting