The Biden campaign is sharpening its edge on the broader issue of reproductive freedom as their ideological rivals continue to flounder in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe vs Wade.
While a unified stance on the issue of abortion continues to elude the GOP, Democrats are mounting a full-scale assault. Hammering their opponents over a century-old abortion ban in Arizona and new restrictions put into place in Florida, the incumbent president’s party enjoys a clear strategic advantage in addition to their polling lead on the issue: Republicans cannot decide whether or not to pursue a ban on abortion at the national level.
The party remains split, even with Donald Trump at the helm saying that he would not support such legislation.
Meanwhile, Democrats are expanding their message to attack Republicans on other aspects of reproductive rights on which they think they can catch them flat-footed. The latest example came in the form of flurry of messages from the Biden campaign’s rapid response team on Twitter highlighting Trump and his allies’ comments on the issue of contraception. Once again playing against the former president: his failure to give a decisive answer when questioned by a reporter about the issue, instead saying that his team was “looking in” to the possibility of restrictions on contraceptive use or availability.
Trump says he’s “looking at” policies to ban contraception pic.twitter.com/ycrP7rDoAC
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) May 22, 2024
Others subjected to the Biden campaign’s new line of attack were Marsha Blackburn, a vocal Trump loyalist in the Senate, and Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA founder and another Trump endorser.
Top Trump supporter Marsha Blackburn says Griswold v. Connecticut is “constitutionally unsound”
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) May 22, 2024
(Griswold v. Connecticut is the 1965 Supreme Court ruling that legalized birth control) pic.twitter.com/AxTL5Ds7J9
Left: Trump operative Charlie Kirk saying Trump needs to go after birth control because he says it “screws up female brains”
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) May 22, 2024
Right: Trump now saying he is “looking at” banning contraception including birth control pic.twitter.com/HsZn1lsSUQ
It’s the latest sign that reproductive freedom will be an issue which the campaign uses to paint Republicans as extremist in 2024, as the president and his allies simultaneously warn of the threat to US democracy they see in a second Trump term.
Trump himself has avoided the issue religiously. He spent weeks — if not months — evading questions about whether or not he would support a national abortion ban, only to come out this spring in favor of it remaining a “leave it to the states” issue. Even with that acknowledgement, he has continued to avoid outlining his own personal beliefs in full.
The former president has yet to clearly lay out whether he would support Republican states that pass bans on the practice that do not include common exceptions for rape or incest, though he has personally said that he supports such exceptions.
He has also yet to specify at what point in the pregnancy exactly, if at all, he thinks abortion should be outlawed.
A report from Puck News this week even revealed that Trump privately refers to abortion as “the A-word” because of its capacity to overshadow the election as an issue. His team, consequently, is reported to be leaning against the selection of a Republican from a state with particularly strict abortion laws as the former president continues his search for a running mate.
The Republican party is expected to outline its official 2024 platform including its national position on abortion and contraception at the party’s convention in Milwaukee later this summer. Whether Trump will personally champion that platform, or make up his own as he goes along, is uncertain.
