Abortion rights advocates see President Joe Biden’s decision to end his campaign as an opportunity to get a Democratic presidential candidate who will better message on their issue. And they say Kamala Harris is that person.
“I think we have a fighting chance to actually give abortion its due,” Lizz Winstead, founder of Abortion Access Front, an organization focused on destigmatizing the procedure, told NOTUS. “It is the one issue Democrats are owning and winning on, and whoever the candidate is will … not retreat from a strategy that centers abortion.”
Winstead added that the vice president “profoundly understands that abortion is about fundamental human rights, that it’s a community good and that the conversation around abortion needs to be broadened.”
Some advocates have expressed frustration with how Biden, a devout Catholic, spoke about abortion. His campaign messaging primarily focused on stories involving abortions in medically necessary cases, something that advocates argued further stigmatized the issue. While it’s still unclear who will be the nominee for the party, activists have said that Harris — who was already endorsed by Biden — will change the game when it comes to communicating on a topic that has been a major driver for Democratic voters.
“Hopefully, the nominee is Kamala Harris. She has been such a leading voice for abortion rights, you know, she’s gone to clinics, she says the word ‘abortion,’ she talks about it willingly,” said David Cohen, a Drexel University law professor and abortion rights advocate. “To have someone like that leading the Democratic ticket would be phenomenal, especially against Donald Trump, who’s responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade.”
Harris has been the Biden administration’s top messenger on abortion, a role she took after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. In his recent press conference, Biden said that Harris would eventually be ready to serve as president due, in part, to “the way she’s handled the issue of freedom of women’s bodies.”
She visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in March, marking the first time a vice president or president has ever visited a facility that provides abortions. Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood, said they know Harris “will continue to fight like hell to rebuild a fundamental right that was stripped away” but did not directly endorse her as the nominee.
“I am confident that the people will rally behind a ticket committed to a path forward where reproductive freedom — and abortion — is an undeniable right,” Johnson said.
Reproductive Freedom for All, an abortion rights group that has been working with the Biden campaign, quickly endorsed Harris as the nominee, saying she “has shown to the American people that she is the leader we need in this moment to go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump,” per a statement from Mini Timmaraju, the group’s president.
“There is nobody who has fought as hard for abortion rights and access, and we are proud to endorse her in this race,” Timmaraju said.
Having Harris as the nominee would make messaging on abortion much “more convincing,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in abortion issues.
“I think it’ll also be easier for her to talk about what Biden did or didn’t do,” Ziegler added. “Because, to credit Biden, he actually, you know, substantively did some things even though he was uncomfortable, but I think with her as the nominee, it won’t come across as awkward or uncomfortable. She’ll be able to sort of defend their agenda a little better.”
Timmaraju said in an interview with NOTUS that research showed Americans were having a hard time understanding how Biden would handle abortion in a second administration, but having Harris at the top of the ticket would “fundamentally reshape that.”
“It’s not that Joe Biden hadn’t been doing things, it’s more that folks weren’t really believing it,” Timmaraju said. “That permissibility gap has shrunk today.”
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Oriana González is a reporter at NOTUS.