‘Everything is at stake’ for reproductive rights in 2024, Harris says as Biden-Trump debate nears

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris says “everything is at stake” with reproductive health rights in November’s election as the Biden campaign steps up its focus on contrasting the positions taken by Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump on the issue before their debate this week.

Harris comments come as the campaign announced it would hold more than 50 events in battleground states and beyond to mark Monday’s second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned the federal legal right to an abortion. Biden and his allies are trying to remind voters that the landmark decision in 2022 was made by a high court that included three conservative justices nominated during Trump’s White House tenure.

“Every person of whatever gender should understand that, if such a fundamental freedom such as the right to make decisions about your own body can be taken, be aware of what other freedoms may be at stake,” Harris said in a joint MSNBC interview with Hadley Duvall, an abortion rights advocate from Kentucky who was raped by her stepfather as a child. Part of the interview aired Sunday.

The Biden campaign believes that abortion rights can be a galvanizing issue in what is expected to be a close general election.

Trump has taken credit for Dobbs with his conservative base while stopping short of supporting a national abortion ban sought by supporters on the religious right, should he return to the White House.

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