US Presidential Election 2024: Kamala Harris and Beyoncé unite in Texas to demonstrate against abortion ban

vice president Kamala Harris will join Beyonce on Friday for a rally in solidly Republican Texas aimed at highlighting the dangerous medical consequences of the state’s strict abortion ban and placing the blame squarely on donald trump.

It’s a message intended to reach far beyond Texas, into political battleground states, where Harris hopes the fallout from the downfall of Roe v. Wade encourage voters to support his quest for the presidency.

Harris will also be joined at the rally by women who nearly died from sepsis and other pregnancy complications because they were unable to get proper medical care, including women who never intended to terminate their pregnancies.

Some of them have already campaigned for Harris and others have told their harrowing stories in campaign ads that seek to show how the issue has become something much bigger than the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

Since abortion was restricted in Texas, the state’s infant mortality rate has increased, more babies have died from birth defects, and maternal mortality has increased.

With the presidential elections in a stalemate, the Democratic candidate is betting on The right to abortion as the main driver for voters. – even for Republican women, particularly since Trump named three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn the constitutional right and has been inconsistent about how he would approach the issue if voters return him to the White House.

Harris’ campaign has adopted Beyonce’s 2016 song “Freedom” as its anthem, and the message fits with the vice president’s push for reproductive freedom. The singer’s planned appearance on Friday adds a high level of star power to Harris’ visit to the state. While in Texas, Harris will also record a podcast with popular host Brené Brown.

There is some evidence to suggest that abortion rights may drive women to the polls, as occurred during the 2022 midterm elections. Voters in seven states, including some conservative ones, have protected the right to abortion or have defeated attempts to restrict it in state votes over the past two years.

“Living in Texas, it seems incredibly important to protect the health and safety of women,” said Austin voter Colette Clark. He said voting for Harris is the best way to prevent more abortion restrictions from happening across the country.

Another Austin resident, Daniel Kardish, didn’t know anyone who has been personally affected by the restrictions, but he still sees it as a key issue in this election.

“I firmly believe that women have bodily autonomy,” she said.

Harris said this week that she thought the issue was compelling enough to motivate even Republican women, adding that “for many of us, our daughter will have fewer rights than her grandmother.”

“When the issue of a woman’s freedom to make decisions about her own body is on the ballot, the American people vote for freedom regardless of which party they are registered to vote for,” Harris said.

Harris isn’t likely to win in Texas, but that’s not the point of her presence on Friday.

“Of all the states in the nation, Texas has been ground zero for heartbreaking stories of women, including women who have been denied care, who have had to leave the state, mothers who have had to leave the state,” she said Skye Perryman, president. of Democracy Forward, a legal group behind many lawsuits challenging abortion restrictions. “It’s one of the main places where this reality has been felt so devastatingly.”

Democrats warn that the reduction of rights and freedoms will only continue if Trump is elected. Republican lawmakers in states across the United States have rejected Democratic efforts to protect or expand access to birth control, for example.

Democrats also hope Harris’ visit will give a boost to Rep. Colin Allred, who is making a long-shot bid to unseat Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Allred will appear at the rally with Harris.

When Roe was first overturned, Democrats initially focused on new limitations on abortion access to end unwanted pregnancies. But the same medical procedures used for abortions are used to treat miscarriages.

And increasingly, in 14 states with strict abortion bans, women cannot receive medical care until their condition becomes life-threatening. In some states, doctors can face criminal charges if they provide medical care.

About 6 in 10 Americans think their state should generally allow a person to obtain a legal abortion if they do not want to get pregnant for any reason, according to a July poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Trump has been inconsistent in his message to voters on abortion and reproductive rights. He has repeatedly changed his stance and offered vague, contradictory and sometimes nonsensical answers to questions on an issue that has become a major vulnerability for Republicans in this year’s elections.

Texas sums up the post-Roe landscape. Its strict abortion ban prohibits doctors from performing abortions once cardiac activity is detected, which can occur as early as six weeks or sooner.

As a result, women, including those who had no intention of terminating a pregnancy, suffer increasingly worse medical care. This is partly because doctors cannot intervene unless a woman faces a life-threatening condition or to prevent a “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”

The state has also become a battleground for litigation. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state’s ban just two weeks ago.

Complaints of pregnant women with medical problems being turned away from emergency rooms in Texas and elsewhere have skyrocketed as hospitals grapple with the question of whether standard care could violate the state’s strict anti-abortion laws.

Several Texas women have filed complaints against hospitals for failing to terminate their failed and dangerous pregnancies because of the state’s ban. In some cases, women lost reproductive organs.

Lately, Republicans have increasingly tried to shift the blame to doctors, alleging that doctors are intentionally denying services in an effort to undermine the bans and make a political argument.

Perryman said that was a hoax.

“Doctors are in a position where they have to face the prospect of criminal liability, personal liability, threat to their medical license and their ability to care for people; they are facing an untenable situation,” he said.