US Vice President and presumptive 2024 Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris criticized former President Donald Trump over abortion rights as a strict six-week ban on the procedure came into effect in the US state of Iowa.
In a social media post, Harris dubbed the Iowa law “another Trump abortion ban.”
“In November, we will end Trump’s extreme abortion bans at the ballot box,” she wrote.
Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, boasted that he “was able to kill Roe v Wade”, the legal precedent that guaranteed the right to abortion in the US for decades, but was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022.
Supported by a 6-3 conservative majority that included several Trump appointees, the U.S. high court’s decision placed the issue of abortion access largely in the hands of individual states to decide.
Iowa’s strict abortion law, which took effect Monday, immediately bans most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.
This morning, more than 1.5 million women in Iowa woke up with fewer rights than they had last night because of yet another Trump abortion ban.
In November, we will end Trump’s extreme abortion bans at the ballot box. pic.twitter.com/nE5HOT0avN
-Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 29, 2024
Now, four U.S. states ban abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, and 14 states have near-total bans at all stages of pregnancy.
Reproductive rights remain a central issue ahead of November’s presidential election, which will pit Trump against Harris after Democratic President Joe Biden dropped out of the race earlier this month.
Biden has made defending access to reproductive health care a central plank of his re-election bid, and Democrats have continued that message, condemning Trump and GOP lawmakers for supporting the end of Roe v Wade.
They also took advantage of remarks that Trump’s running mate, US Senator JD Vance, made about abortion to paint the Republican ticket as a threat to reproductive rights in the US.
In 2022, Vance suggested there should be a “federal response” to people traveling outside their home states for abortions. He also described the passage of a measure guaranteeing access to abortion in Ohio as a “punch in the gut.”
But like Trump, Vance said he believes the issue should be left for U.S. states to decide.
Amid calls from anti-abortion activists and hard-line conservatives to support a national abortion ban, Trump said in April that “the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide should be the law of the country”.
“Many states will be different,” said the former president in a video on social media, adding that: “At the end of the day, it all comes down to the will of the people.”
Although conservatives have spent decades trying to overturn Roe v Wade, abortion has become an Achilles heel for the Republican Party, as polls show that abortion bans and restrictions are unpopular and most Americans want to protect access to the procedure. .
The Pew Research Center reported in April 2023 — nearly a year after Roe was overturned — that 62% of Americans said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared to 36% who said it should be illegal.
Looking across party lines, research found that 84 percent of Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 40 percent of Republicans or right-leaning independents said the same.
In Iowa, abortion was previously legal until 20 weeks of pregnancy.
But last July, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a new ban on the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy. There are limited exceptions in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormality or when the mother’s life is in danger.
The Iowa Supreme Court reiterated last month that there is no constitutional right to abortion in the state and ordered the new law suspended. The district judge’s orders last week set July 29 as the first day of enforcement.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, called it a “historic day for Iowa.”
But Ruth Richardson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, said the ban “will impact Iowans for generations to come.”
Sarah Traxler, an OB/GYN based in neighboring Minnesota and chief medical officer at the same branch of Planned Parenthood, also said the Iowa law could have ripple effects across the region.
When Roe v Wade was overturned, “a lot of the patients who came to Iowa were from Missouri,” Traxler said in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio. “This will have resounding impacts on the region itself, especially in the Midwest and South.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
