By Chuck Hobbs, Columnist
I was honored to “be in that number” on behalf of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice yesterday as Vice-President Kamala Harris commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision before a standing-room-only crowd of 1,500 raucous supporters at The Moon nightclub in Florida’s Capital City of Tallahassee.
Standing barely a mile away from the very office in which Florida Gov. Ron Desantis signed legislation last summer that banned all abortions after 15 weeks—with no exceptions for rape or incest—after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe with a 6-3 decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Harris, in an alternately clinical and passionate address, vowed that the Biden administration views the fight for reproductive rights as a fight for “freedom and liberty.”
Harris exclaimed that “Republicans in Congress are now calling for an abortion ban at the moment of conception,” which she followed by tracing the history of conservatives who opposed ending slavery and supported establishing Jim crow laws that discriminated against Black citizens to the same ideological animus that fuels the current push to meddle into the private medical decisions between women and their health care providers.
Harris cited instances over the past seven months in which women’s lives have been placed in jeopardy due to their states severely restricting access to safe and legal abortions. Harris also lamented the horror of medical professionals and pharmacists who will soon face prosecution and possible prison sentences simply for performing their duties per their professional oaths.
It is important to note that last summer’s Dobbs decision did not end abortion in America. Instead, it allowed each state to decide on the matter. As it stands,12 states have passed almost complete bans on abortion, while five other states have banned all elective abortions (pending federal appeals).
While the federal court system takes its long and winding path to decide upon the constitutionality of bans in their respective circuit courts of appeal, Harris indicated that the Biden administration is already taking measures to counter all pushes to end federal protection of abortion in states that still allow the procedures. Among these measures is a memorandum that will likely morph into an executive order allowing abortion pills to be federally protected and distributed by pharmacies. This push will run directly counter to a recent missive that Florida Gov. Ron Desantis sent via the state’s department of health warning pharmacies that it is illegal for them to dispense pills that could end pregnancies up to 10 weeks gestation.
Ironically, during the same weekend that Harris was in Florida vowing to fight for abortion rights, Desantis was front and center at the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington, D.C., fighting to end (or severely restrict) them across the nation. While Desantis has yet to formally announce his intentions with regards to the 2024 presidential race, a straw poll from this weekend’s summit found that 54% of the youth respondent’s favored him as the Republican presidential nominee next year—while former President Donald Trump, a Florida resident who has announced his plans to seek a second term—received only 20 percent of the vote.
While many Americans who describe themselves as Evangelical or Catholic oppose abortion, a Pew Research Center study from last June found that over 60% of those polled support a woman’s choice to have an abortion. As such, the battle over the future of abortion rights will continue to be waged along the presidential trail, in Congress and the federal courts, and the court of public opinion via social media for many years to come.
