Abortion rights advocates were stunned by the president Joe Bidenthe vague and sometimes incoherent messages about abortion access during Thursday night’s debate, especially when he refused to rebuke the former president Donald Trump’s false allegations that Democrats are in favor of killing babies.
“The debate was a disaster,” said Dr. Warren Hern, director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic in Colorado. “It’s going to be hard to recover from this.”
The debate should have been a preparation for people in favor of abortion rights. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, touted the fact that he appointed three anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court while in office from 2017 to 2021. As a result, the constitutional right to abortion was annulled in 2022, leaving it up to states to allow women to terminate their pregnancies and at what stage.
But Biden did little to challenge his opponent on this issue during Thursday’s showdown. He said the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was a “terrible thing,” but then changed the subject to a nursing student who was murdered earlier this year on the University of Georgia campus – an incident that had nothing to do with abortion.
Julie Burkhart, co-owner of the Hope Clinic, which provides abortions in Granite City, Illinois, said Biden’s poor performance on the issue has sparked a sense of “dismay, alarm and concern” among her colleagues. She said she fears a second Trump presidency could lead to a national abortion ban.
“This presidential election, I feel, is the most important election I will ever witness in my life,” Burkhart said.
Abortion opponents said the same. They are hopeful that a second Trump presidency would lead to “reasonable steps” to ensure that “tax dollars are not being used to pay for abortion,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee.
Polarized opinions emerge as the nation continues to grapple with the issue of abortion care. This past week marked the second anniversary of the Supreme Court‘The decision to overturn Roe. According to a recent KFF surveya health policy and research group, 1 in 10 women say abortion rights are the most important issue determining their vote.
“Abortion rights advocates need to make sure the public understands what is at stake for health care and women’s rights,” Hern said. “It’s a desperate situation.”
Abortion rights advocates say they will stick to the message before the election. They are trying to distract voters from Biden’s poor performance by focusing on his administration’s overall goals and decisions about who should be in charge of influential health agencies.
“What kind of direction are these agency heads going to take? Will they defend attacks on access to abortion or enact rules that make it more difficult, if not impossible, for people to access health care?” said Michelle Velasquez, chief strategy officer at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin.
“The presidency is more than just one person,” Velasquez said.
Leila Abolfazli, director of national abortion strategy at the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, said the group will continue to explain the impact of ongoing decisions, such as the Supreme Court’s avoidance of a ruling on whether Idaho’s abortion ban conflicts with federal law which sets standards for emergency patients, including women whose pregnancies are fatal.
“The struggle I face is explaining to people what these ephemeral concepts and laws really mean in everyday life,” Abolfazli said. “Pregnancy care is under attack across the board. That’s what people need to realize.”
In addition to the presidential election, four states have amendments on the November ballot that would aim to preserve the right to abortion: Colorado, Florida, Maryland and South Dakota.
“We’re all holding our breath until November,” said Candace Dye, owner of A Woman’s World Medical Center in Fort Pierce, Florida, a clinic that provides abortions. “I hope and pray that this amendment passes.”
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
