President Joe Biden connected the dots for voters Tuesday with an unassailable truth about the Republican abortion bans sweeping the country: "The only reason there is an abortion ban in America is because of Donald Trump."
Appearing at a campaign reception in San Francisco, Biden sought to push back on the growing narrative that Trump has been "vague" on abortion when he has repeatedly bragged about how "proud" he was to "terminate" Roe v. Wade. The Trump campaign is also currently running an Iowa ad crediting his judicial appointments for overturning the '70s-era Supreme Court ruling that made access to abortion a federal right.
To Biden's point, whatever pro-choice conservatives might tell themselves about Trump's abortion position, Trump is solely responsible for enabling Republican state lawmakers to ram through these six-week, 12-week, and 15-week abortion bans at the expense of their constituents.
"Let’s be absolutely clear what Trump’s bragging about," Biden told event attendees, "The only reason there is an abortion ban in America is because of Donald Trump. The only reason teenagers in Ohio are being forced to travel out of state to get their healthcare is because of Donald Trump. The only reason a fundamental right has been stripped away from the American people for the first time in American history is because of Donald Trump."
All of this may seem obvious to pro-choice Democrats, but some recent focus groups suggest pro-choice Republicans are deluding themselves about the threat a Trump presidency would pose to abortion access nationwide.
Biden will never cut into Trump's MAGA margins. But conservatives and soft Republicans who fervently believe in abortion rights (and democracy more broadly) represent a small but critical slice of voters, some of whom could be persuaded to vote against Trump.
Team Biden needs to make a case for the stark choice voters will likely face next year between abortion rights believer Biden and abortion ban pusher Trump. It's a case that simultaneously motivates Democratic base voters while confronting pro-choice conservatives with the very real prospect that Trump could eradicate abortion rights nationwide if he is able to regain control of the White House.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
