Vice President Kamala Harris visited the Grand Canyon State to rail against a 160-year-old abortion law that the state’s Supreme Court recently upheld. The law prohibits the termination of a pregnancy at any stage and for any reason unless the mother’s life is in danger. And get this: Harris said it was all Trump’s fault.
“And we all must understand who all is to blame,” VP Harris said. “Former President Donald Trump did this.” Somehow, he arranged for the purple state to uphold the archaic law. But remember, Arizona voted for Biden/Harris in 2020, not Trump.
Reproductive Freedoms Tour
Abortion is the perfect issue for Harris. It’s a topic that can stir up the constituency whether she finds solutions or not, just so long as it seems she’s trying.
“Donald Trump is the architect of this health care crisis. And that’s not a fact, by the way, that he hides. In fact, he brags about it,” Harris said in front of a small crowd of about 100 supporters in Tucson. She is correct in that Trump believes the rollback of Roe v. Wade was necessary to allow states to legislate – or not – on the issue.
To inform our vice president, Trump has not called for a nationwide abortion ban, much to the dismay of his evangelical conservative supporters. He explained it clearly in a video on TruthSocial:
“My view is now that we have an abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land – in this case, the law of the state.”
On Friday, April 12, as Kamala was rallying the few faithful left, Trump called on the governor of Arizona to “remedy what has happened” because the State Supreme Court “went too far.” He has publicly voiced exceptions to hard and fast laws: “Remember, it is now up to the States and the Good Will of those that represent THE PEOPLE,” he wrote on his Truth Social. “We must ideally have the three Exceptions for Rape, Incest, and Life of the Mother.”
Harris Calls Trump a Gaslighter
The vice president clearly didn’t believe Mr. Trump. She labeled him a gaslighter, and marched on with a bombastic speech on freedom – or the lack thereof – for women in America. A “seismic event,” Harris described the 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade. The Arizona ban, she says, was “one of the biggest aftershocks.”
“Just like he did in Arizona, he basically wants to take America back to the 1800s,” Harris said. “But we are not going to let that happen. We are not going back.”
Being labeled a “gaslighter” on a woman’s right to choose is a far-fetched interpretation of Trump’s stance on the issue. In 1999, during a media interview, he stated he was “very pro-choice,” with the caveat: “I hate the concept of abortion.” In 2000 he claimed he would support a ban, but no specifics were included.
Trump has bounced around the center of the debate for quite some time, including a pledge to defund Planned Parenthood and, of course, supporting the US Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade.
But so what? Another person very close to the debate on abortion rights was Norma McCorvey, otherwise known as Roe. In 1995, McCorvey had a change of heart and came out against abortion. In 2004, Norma sought to convince the Supreme Court to overturn the decision.
Harris and the Democratic Party use Roe like a battering ram – a tool the late McCorvey would most likely disavow. Still, Harris slogs on with her Reproductive Freedoms Tour, rattling sabers at the folks in Arizona and beyond. “They have turned back the clock to the 1800s to take away a woman’s most fundamental right – the right to make decisions about her own body,” Harris said. “This decision by the Arizona state supreme court now means women here live under one of the most extreme abortion bans in our nation.”
Is this the issue on which the GOP will plant its flag? No, there is the stagnant economy, sky-high inflation, lack of full-time employment, and illegal immigration crisis with which to beat Biden and Harris over the head. But the Democrats? Oh, yes. This is all they have.
