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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Gustaf Kilander

Kentucky rape survivor hits out at Trump for overturning Roe in powerful new Harris ad

AP

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Kentucky rape survivor Hadley Duvall narrates a new ad for the Harris campaign in which she severely criticizes former President Donald Trump for the overturning of Roe v Wade.

During his term in the White House, Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices who voted for the overturning of the landmark 1973 ruling which made abortion a constitutionally protected right. It was overturned in the summer of 2022.

In the ad, Duvall speaks about how she was abused by her stepfather from the age of five, and how he impregnated her at the age of 12 before Roe was overturned.

Hadley Duvall speaks on stage during the Democratic National Convention Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, in Chicago (AP)

Duvall said this meant she “had options.”

“Because Donald Trump overturned Roe v Wade, girls and women have lost the right to choose. Donald Trump did this,” she added. “He took away our freedom.”

The ad uses the song When the Party’s Over by Billie Eilish, who announced her endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday.

“We are voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz because they are fighting to protect our reproductive freedom, our planet and our democracy,” she said in a video shared on X.

“We can’t let extremists control our lives, our freedoms, and our future,” her brother Finneas O’Connell said in the video.

“Vote like your life depends on it because it does,” Eilish added.

The Duvall ad is set to air during the WNBA playoffs, the season premiere of Survivor, and Good Morning America on ABC, The Hill noted. It’s also set to air on Bravo and HGTV.

Duvall is also participating in a Harris campaign bus tour in Pennsylvania focusing on reproductive rights. She also spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month.

Harris posted the video on X, writing, “After a violation of their bodies, survivors of rape and incest are being told they cannot make decisions about what happens to them next—all because of Trump Abortion Bans.”

“This is immoral. Women and girls like Hadley deserve better,” she added.

Duvall previously appeared in an ad for what was then the Biden campaign, before President Joe Biden departed the race, taking aim at former President Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance.

Duvall said in the earlier ad that the “first thing that was told to me when I saw that positive pregnancy test was, you have options.”

“And, if Roe v Wade would have been overturned sooner, I wouldn’t have heard that and then it had me thinking, there’s someone who doesn’t get to hear that now,” she added at the time.

“Trump and JD Vance don’t care about women, they don’t care about girls in this situation,” she said.

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