President Joe Biden will travel to Virginia next Tuesday for a rally focused on abortion rights on what would have been the anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
Biden will be joined by Vice President Kamala Harris, First Lady Jill Biden, and Second Gentlemen Doug Emhoff, making it the first time the four will appear at a campaign rally together since Biden announced his re-election campaign in April.
“Donald Trump is the reason that more than 1 in 3 American women of reproductive age don’t have the freedom to make their own health care decisions,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement. “Now, he and MAGA Republicans are running to go even further if they retake the White House.”
Biden’s re-election campaign will use the event as a message that this year’s election is a “woman’s right to make her own health care decisions — including the very possible reality of a MAGA Republican-led national abortion ban.”
As part of the new focus, television and digital ads telling the stories of personal impact of abortion restrictions will air in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, according to a Biden-Harris campaign official.
“Trump directly paved the way for Republican extremists across the country to enact draconian bans that are hurting women and threatening doctors,” Rodriguez continued. “In 2024, a vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is a vote to restore Roe, and a vote for Donald Trump is a vote to ban abortion across the country.”’
Abortion is set to be a major issue in the election this fall with Democrats notching victories in gubernatorial and state legislative races in the two years since the SCOTUS decision, as well as passing ballot measures to guarantee access.
The Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June 2022, ending federal protections as Republican-led states passed restrictions on abortion access.
Former President Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the GOP nomination, has repeatedly dodged questions about whether he would support a national abortion ban. However, he has taken credit for the Supreme Court’s decision.
“They were trying to get rid of Roe v. Wade for 50 years but I did it,” Trump said at a recent town hall. “And I’m proud to have done it.”
