As expected, the issue of abortion was one of the most controversial issues discussed in the presidential debate that the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, and the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, starred in this Thursday. The question, posed in the first minutes of the meeting, was first directed at Trump, who said that if he were elected president he would not veto the abortion pill, and would respect the Supreme Court’s ruling. Earlier this month, the Court ruled in favor of maintaining access to mifespristone, a drug that women have had access to for more than two decades and which was used in 63% of all abortions in the United States last year. past.
The former president, who in recent months has avoided commenting on an issue so controversial even among Republicans, reiterated in the debate that it should be the states that legislate on the right to abortion. Trump, who at all times referred to the fetus as a “baby and a child,” was very proud of having appointed the three conservative judges of the Supreme Court who overturned the historic ruling of ‘Roe v. Wade’, which since 1973 guaranteed the right to abortion.
The decision of the highest court, two years ago, left that competence in the hands of the States. At least 25 million women now live in territories with restrictions on abortion and face great difficulties in undergoing an intervention. Those who can, choose to travel to other States to do so. But not everyone has the family or economic conditions to do so.
“The states are voting, and in many cases it is frankly a very liberal decision. In many cases it is the opposite, but they are voting and this goes back to the vote of the people, which is what everyone wanted, including the founders,” said the former president, who added that this would be what the “founding fathers” of the country and former President Ronald Reagan wanted. “Many presidents had tried to bring it back. I was the one who did it,” he boasted, attributing to himself a decision made by the Supreme Court.
In this section, the former president also used a hoax that has circulated in conservative sectors by saying that there are defenders of abortion who “will take the life of a child in the eighth month, in the ninth month, and even after birth.” ”. And he was in favor of termination of pregnancy in three exceptions: rape, incest and danger to the mother’s life.
Biden, for his part, promised that, if he is re-elected, he will reinstate the right to abortion contemplated in the ruling in the case of Roe v. Wade, which for more than half a century assured women’s reproductive rights. The Democrat criticized that it is the States that are legislating on an issue that should be under federal jurisdiction to ensure that all women in the country have the same possibilities of accessing pregnancy termination. “The idea that the States can do this is like saying that we are going to return civil rights to the States. But each State has a different rule,” he protested.
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Prominence in the Democratic campaign
Reproductive rights have been key in the campaign and the opposing positions of Democrats and Republicans will determine a good part of the votes in the November presidential elections, especially those of the female electorate.
While Biden has opted from the beginning to support women’s reproductive rights and to blame Trump for their loss, the former president has oscillated in his statements without ever specifying his position. Last April, during a press conference in Atlanta, Trump said he would not sign a national abortion ban if he were elected president, reversing a promise he had made in the past. On the other hand, he has preferred not to get too involved and support the States being the ones to legislate it.
Democrats have bet harder on this issue to win votes and took advantage of the second anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling that led to the ban on abortion in much of the country to launch a campaign on the issue. Last Monday they presented the announcement Criminal Actions, which features Kaitlyn Joshua, the woman who was turned away from two Louisiana emergency rooms while suffering a miscarriage. The legislative changes in this southern State meant that doctors did not provide her with help, despite the emergency in which she found herself, for fear of being prosecuted.
The announcement is part of a campaign that will include 50 events around the high court’s decision. In a ruling on the case Dobbs v. Jackson, The Supreme Court overturned the sentence of Roe v. Wadewhich had guaranteed women the right to abortion nationwide since 1973. The ruling returned the power to legislate on the issue to the states. The new campaign claims that, as a result of Trump’s first term, which facilitated a conservative majority on the court, 21 states have approved abortion restrictions, in many cases so strict that there are no exceptions for rape or incest.
Vice President Kamala Harris has been a front-runner in the Democratic pro-choice campaign, adopting the role of a champion of reproductive rights in most of her public appearances. “When it comes to the theft of reproductive freedom from American women, Donald Trump is guilty,” she said on Monday.
But despite having openly boasted that the Supreme Court judges he appointed struck down the right to abortion, the fear that such a harsh position as the one he had already defended to ban it completely would cost him votes, has led the Republican to abstain from supporting such a controversial measure during the campaign.
According to a Pew Research survey published in May, 63% of the population is in favor of legalizing abortion in all or most cases, while 36% prefer to ban it.
This week, a new Supreme Court ruling on abortion hit the news. Mistakenly leaked to the media ahead of time, the decision allows women in the State of Idaho to have abortions in hospital emergency rooms. On Thursday, the Supreme Court confirmed the ruling on the Moyle v. United States case, by six votes in favor (of the three liberal judges and three of the six conservatives), and three against. The court argues that it should not have accepted the case and refers to the ruling of a lower court that allowed the interruption of pregnancies in cases of health emergency. Conservative Samuel Alito, drafter of the ruling in the case Dobbs v. jackson which annulled Roe v. Wadedisagreed with the decision, as did Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas.
The Supreme Court took up the Idaho case after the Biden administration sued to allow abortions in emergency cases where the woman’s health was at serious risk. However, the Supreme Court ruling does not answer key questions about whether doctors can perform emergency abortions elsewhere, an important question since most Republican-controlled states have taken steps to prevent the procedure.
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