With an eye on energizing suburban women, abortion has been a key campaign issue for Democrats ever since the justices voted to return control of abortion to the states.
On Monday, Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union and Reproductive Freedom for All pledged to spend $100 million to not only restore federal protections for abortion but to make abortion more accessible than it’s ever been.
The national campaign called “Abortion Access Now" aims to prepare policies now for the next time the Democrats control the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives at the same time, Politico reported.
The groups met with key progressives in Washington Monday night.
“Dobbs was a really devastating outcome, but we’re going to win back our rights much faster than they think,” Mini Timmaraju, the president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, told Politico. “We’re not going to let the anti-abortion extremists define this moment. We’re coming for them and we’re going to make sure that they become increasingly irrelevant.”
“It’s simply clear that they believe this is an issue that they can run on and win,” Meg Kilgannon, the Family Research Council’s senior fellow for Education Studies, said on Washington Watch Monday.
A Harris strength identified
In a recent campaign speech, Vice President Kamala Harris called the current abortion climate a “healthcare crisis.”
“And we all know who is to blame … Donald Trump,” Harris continued. “Today, our daughters have fewer rights than their grandmothers.”
Kilgannon took note of the hypocrisy.
“You only have rights if you’re born. That’s the only way you have rights. Grandmothers aren’t grandmothers unless there are grandbabies. Daughters don’t have daughters unless they give birth to those daughters,” she said.
Still, while conservatives often make fun of the vice president for her public speech stumbles, Kilgannon said they would be wise to consider Harris a worthy opponent in at least this area of her job.
“We like to, on the Right, make fun of Kamala Harris when she makes her gaffes, but one thing she is very good at is talking about abortion," she observed. "She speaks very eloquently about that. It’s a great tragedy that she’s capable of doing so. We do need to take this seriously. They are running on this issue, and they’re not going to stop.”
The Democrats’ relentless pursuit of the abortion topic means Republicans have to be on top of their game.
“We are going to have to do a really good job as conservatives in stating the case for life in making sure their arguments fall on deaf ears, showing that our actions support families, supporting mothers and fathers in keeping their children, having those children and loving those children. We need to be very vigilant about that,” Kilgannon said.
That’s where the economy issue could benefit Republicans, Kilgannon said.
“We need to make sure the next president addresses problems in the economy that (right now) make it so people don’t think they can afford to have a family. That puts extra pressure on people to make these horrible decisions.”
