Harris slams Trump on abortion issue as six-week ban takes effect in Iowa

United States Vice President and the Democratic Party’s likely 2024 nominee Kamala Harris has slammed former President Donald Trump on abortion rights as a stringent, six-week ban on the procedure entered into force in the US state of Iowa.

In a post on social media, Harris dubbed the Iowa law “another Trump Abortion Ban”.

“In November, we will stop Trump’s extreme abortion bans at the ballot box,” she wrote.

Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, has boasted that he “was able to kill Roe v Wade”, the legal precedent that had guaranteed abortion rights across the US for decades but was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022.

Bolstered by a 6-3 conservative majority that included several Trump appointees, the top US court’s decision put the question of abortion access largely in the hands of individual states to decide.

Iowa’s strict abortion law, which went into effect on Monday, immediately prohibits most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.

This morning, more than 1.5 million women in Iowa woke up with fewer rights than they had last night because of another Trump Abortion Ban.

In November, we will stop Trump’s extreme abortion bans at the ballot box. pic.twitter.com/nE5HOT0avN

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 29, 2024

Now, four US states ban abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, and 14 states have near-total bans at all stages of pregnancy.

Reproductive rights continue to be a central issue heading into November’s presidential election, which is set to pit Trump against Harris after Democratic President Joe Biden dropped out of the race earlier this month.

Biden had made defending access to reproductive healthcare a central plank of his re-election bid, and Democrats have continued that message, condemning Trump and Republican Party lawmakers for supporting the end of Roe v Wade.

They have also seized on remarks that Trump’s running mate, US Senator JD Vance, made on abortion to paint the Republican ticket as a threat to reproductive rights in the US.

In 2022, Vance suggested there should be a “federal response” to people travelling out of their home states to get abortions. He also described the passage of a measure guaranteeing abortion access in Ohio as a “gut punch”.

But like Trump, Vance has said he believes the issue should be left up to US states to decide.

Amid calls from anti-abortion activists and hardline conservatives to back a national abortion ban, Trump said in April that “the states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land”.

“Many states will be different,” the former president said in a social media video, adding that, “At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people.”

While conservatives had spent decades trying to overturn Roe v Wade, abortion has become an Achilles heel for the Republican Party, as polls show abortion bans and restrictions are unpopular and most Americans want to protect access to the procedure.

The Pew Research Center reported in April 2023 — nearly a year after Roe was overturned — that 62 percent of Americans said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 36 percent who said it should be illegal.

Looking along partisan lines, the survey found that 84 percent of Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 40 percent of Republicans or right-leaning independents said the same.

In Iowa, abortion was previously legal up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

But last July, the state’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a new ban on the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy. There are limited exceptions in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormality or when the life of the mother is in danger.

The Iowa Supreme Court reiterated last month that there is no constitutional right to an abortion in the state and ordered a hold on the new law to be lifted. The district court judge’s orders last week set July 29 as the first day of enforcement.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, called it a “historic day for Iowa”.

But Ruth Richardson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, said the ban “will impact Iowans for generations to come”.

Sarah Traxler, an obstetrician/gynaecologist based in the neighbouring state of Minnesota and the chief medical officer of the same Planned Parenthood branch, also said Iowa’s law could have ripple effects throughout the region.

When Roe v Wade was overturned, “many of the patients coming to Iowa were from Missouri”, Traxler said in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio. “This is going to have resounding impacts on the region itself, especially the Midwest and the South.”