Harris visits abortion clinic as Republicans refuse IVF protection. Voters will remember.
So Vice President Kamala Harris stood in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota and said – out loud, for all the world to hear – the words “uterus” and “abortion” and “contraceptive care.”
And lo, the world did not end.
After speaking passionately and honestly Thursday about the reproductive health care rights women have lost since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Harris said: “How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need, to tell women what is in their best interest? We have to be a nation that trusts women.”
She’s right. It’s remarkable that it needs to be said, but clearly it does.
Vice President Kamala Harris vs. House Speaker Mike Johnson
At about the same time Harris was visiting the clinic in the Twin Cities, House Speaker Mike Johnson was at a Republican retreat saying he opposes any federal legislation to protect in vitro fertilization, which has come under attack recently following an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that said frozen embryos are children.
“It’s not my belief that Congress needs to play a role here,” he said from West Virginia. “I think this is being handled by the states.”
Is reproductive health up to the states? Election minefield for Republicans got worse with IVF ruling.
That’s an interesting comment coming from a guy who is one of more than 100 U.S. House Republican co-sponsors of the Life at Conception Act, which contains no IVF exceptions. The same guy who has voted in the past for a national abortion ban.
Basically, it’s up to the states when it fits Johnson’s ideology and up to the federal government when it doesn’t.
Harris' Planned Parenthood visit shows who's on the side of women
The juxtaposition of Johnson’s man-confident hypocrisy and the first female vice president directly advocating for reproductive health care rights was striking. And it presents voters who care about reproductive rights – be it IVF or abortion or contraception – with a simple question: Who are you going to trust?
The first-ever vice president to visit an abortion clinic and speak in support of the rights lost to a conservative U.S. Supreme Court ruling, or the very conservatives who applauded the loss of those rights and appear eager to keep going?
IVF access is reproductive justice: Alabama IVF ruling was protested by both sides. There's common ground for reproductive health.
Former President Donald Trump has boasted about appointing the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, and he has recently expressed support for a 16-week national abortion ban.
The Washington Post reported that in the wake of the Alabama IVF ruling, “ardent abortion opponents at the Heritage Foundation and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, among other groups, have sought to push lawmakers and state legislatures toward regulating IVF treatments in the United States.”
In 2022, 195 House Republicans voted against the Right to Contraception Act, which would’ve protected access to contraception from any government restriction.
Trust women? That's not what GOP is doing ... at all
None of that demonstrates a willingness to, as Harris said, trust women. But it does paint a picture of an ongoing plan, often led by Republican men, to continue exerting control over women and the reproductive choices they can make.
With her unprecedented visit to that Planned Parenthood clinic, the vice president put down a marker, making it abundantly clear where the Biden administration stands.
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“The reason I’m here is because this is a health care crisis,” Harris said. “Part of this health care crisis is the clinics like this that have had to shut down and what that has meant to leave no options with any reasonable geographic area for so many women who need this essential care.”
Harris made abortion-rights statement voters will remember
Again, she’s right. Women in states with draconian abortion laws have suffered, and continue to suffer. And voters care deeply about this, as Republicans have learned in recent elections.
Republicans like Speaker Johnson can wave off the issue of federal protection for IVF procedures all he wants. But that dismissive attitude, coupled with his own party’s culpability for the situations many women now find themselves in, will be remembered.
As will Harris’ willingness to stand in an abortion clinic and show voters whose side she’s on.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Harris abortion clinic visit shows Biden campaign hears voters
