Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a rousing and emotional round of attacks on former president Donald Trump’s abortion positions during the debate Tuesday night, conjuring clear and specific images of the women who have been denied abortion care since Roe v. Wade fell — as her opponent struggled to articulate a clear position on the issue many Democrats believe could win Harris the election.
“You want to talk about, ‘this is what people wanted?’” Harris said to Trump, who in the exchange took credit for appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped topple Roe and asserted that all Americans had wanted control of the issue turned over to the states.
“Pregnant women … being denied care in an emergency room because their health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn’t want that. A 12- or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don’t want that,” Harris continued.
The intense, nearly 10-minute exchange highlighted the importance of the abortion issue in November — and the difficulties Trump has had explaining his track record on abortion in a post-Roe landscape where polls and referendums have showed that voters, including many independents and Republicans in swing states, are extremely supporting of preserving abortion rights.
During the debate, the former president repeatedly made false statements that Democrats support murdering babies once they are born — an illegal act that would constitute murder in all 50 states. He insinuated that an upcoming ballot initiative to restore abortion rights in Florida would promote abortions “in the ninth month,” when, in fact, if adopted, the amendment would only allow abortions until the point of viability, around 24 weeks, unless a mother’s health is at risk.
“Her vice-presidential pick says abortion in the ninth month is absolutely fine,” Trump said, referring to vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz. “He also says execution after birth is … okay.”
Walz has made no such statements.
Tuesday’s exchange on abortion came just two weeks after Trump flip-flopped on his support for the ballot initiative in his home state of Florida. Twenty-four hours after announcing that Florida’s current six-week ban on abortion was too restrictive, and that he would be “voting that we need more than six weeks,” Trump announced he would vote against the initiative.
While Trump has struggled with the abortion issue far more than Harris, the subject can also sometimes be difficult for Democrats, who are often reluctant to say at what point they believe abortion should no longer be legal. Toward the end of their exchange, Trump pressed Harris to say whether she would support abortions in the seventh or eighth month of pregnancy — questions Harris did not answer.
Abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy are rare, and almost always occur because a woman’s health is at risk, or because of a severe fetal anomaly.
The leading voice on abortion within the Biden administration, Harris has made abortion rights a centerpiece of her campaign since she became the nominee, planning a 50-stop “Reproductive Freedom Bus Tour” that started earlier this month in Trump’s hometown of Palm Beach, Fla., and promising to sign a bill codifying Roe.
Her impassioned approach to the issue Tuesday night provided a clear contrast to President Joe Biden, who bungled his answer to the abortion question during the debate earlier this summer that ultimately led him to drop out of the presidential race.
Biden, a religious Catholic who once said he personally opposes abortion, has long struggled to speak about abortion, often reluctant even to say the word. The abortion moment offered a striking window into what Democrats gained by replacing Biden with Harris, who if elected would be the nation’s first female president.
“I support Roe v. Wade, which had three trimesters,” Biden said during the debate in June. “The first time, is between a woman and a doctor. Second time is between a doctor and an extreme situation. A third time is between the doctor, I mean, between the women and the state.”
Harris’ campaign claimed they saw immediate results from voters in swing state focus groups Tuesday night. The strongest moment of the debate for Harris up to that point, a campaign official said, was when Harris spoke about abortion, specifically when she said, “The government and Trump should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.” Trump’s abortion language was his lowest numbers of the first 30 minutes, according to their calls.
Between 9 and 10 p.m., the Harris campaign said that 71 percent of their grassroots donors were women.
And shortly after the debate, Harris received the key endorsement of pop super star Taylor Swift, who wrote on Instagram that among Harris’s qualities that she appreciated was that she had been “standing up for … a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
Matt Viser contributed to this report.
