During a visit to Arizona on Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris attacked Donald Trump, claiming the former president was to blame for what she called a “full-on” attack on reproductive rights following the state Supreme Court’s reinstatement of an abortion prohibition from 1864.
“We all must understand who is to blame. Former President Donald Trump did this,” During a speech to roughly one hundred supporters on Friday at a Joe Biden campaign rally in Tucson, Arizona, Harris stated. “Donald Trump is the architect of this health care crisis.”
Harris’s visit occurred shortly after the Arizona Supreme Court, in a 4-2 ruling on Tuesday, upheld a ban on almost all abortions that occurred before Arizona became a state.
The majority of the court argued that the 160-year-old law was still in effect because the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade, which had left open the possibility of an abortion as a constitutional right.
Calling Arizona’s abortion ban “a new inflection point,” Harris stated, “the overturning of Roe was without a doubt a seismic event, and this ban here in Arizona is one of the biggest aftershocks yet.”
“It has demonstrated, once and for all, that overturning Roe was just the opening act of a larger strategy to take women’s rights and freedoms, part of a full-on attack, state by state, on reproductive freedom.”
Shortly prior to Harris’s statements, Trump, the likely Republican nominee, said reporters at his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate that “we broke Roe v. Wade,” which he claimed gave the states the last word, negating the need for a federal ban on abortion.
In an attempt to disassociate himself from the Arizona verdict, Trump declared that “the states are working very brilliantly” and that everything was “working the way it’s supposed to.”
Trump’s comments infuriated Harris, the Biden administration’s principal spokesperson on the fight to reestablish reproductive rights.
READ ALSO: Abortion Rights Controversy Haunts Trump, Echoes Biden’s Strategy
According to Harris, Trump is “gaslighting” when he claims he opposes a federal ban on abortions. “As much harm as he has already caused, a second Trump term would be even worse,” Harris claimed. “We all know if Donald Trump gets the chance, he will sign a national abortion ban. And how do we know? Just look at his record.”
Following the decision, several providers announced that, due to a court ruling in a separate case, they will at least temporarily continue providing abortions up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, most likely into May.
Voters in Arizona may have the last word on the state’s abortion legislation. Abortion rights activists have gathered over 500,000 signatures—far more than the required 383,923 signatures—to place a ballot initiative protecting access to abortion on the November ballot in Arizona.
Arizona’s abortion referendum would be a huge plus for the Biden campaign, which aims to make the restoration of abortion rights a central platform for the 2024 election.
Since Roe’s demise, abortion has helped Democrats win a number of state referendums, and it is generally acknowledged that this helped produce a new generation of Democrats who exceeded expectations in the 2022 midterm elections.
“Here’s what a second Trump term looks like. More bans, more suffering and less freedom,” Harris stated. “Just like he did in Arizona, he basically wants to take America back to the 1800s. But we are not going to let that happen.”
