Kamala Harris is a vocal advocate for reproductive rights

In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and reversed Roe v. Wade, Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has been a vocal advocate for reproductive rights and has spoken frankly about the importance of abortion access.

“I think there’s been a lot of people who are talking specifically about reproductive rights and about Dobbs and its effects and are excited that she is a candidate who has not shied away from talking about abortion,” said Rachel Rebouché, a scholar in reproductive and family law and the dean of Temple University Beasley School of Law.

Harris has repeatedly spoken out on the campaign trail against the end of Roe and the Republican Party’s unyielding assault on reproductive freedoms.  

While in Savannah, Georgia, in February, Harris said: “And in this health care crisis, please do understand who is to blame. The former president, Donald Trump, hand-picked three members of the United States Supreme Court because he intended for them to overturn Roe. He intended for them to take your freedoms. And it’s a decision he brags about.”

“After 50 years of failure, with nobody coming even close, I was able to kill Roe v. Wade, much to the ‘shock’ of everyone,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023.

In March 2024, Harris became the first vice president to visit an abortion clinic.  

At a Tucson, Arizona, rally in April, after the state Supreme Court upheld the state’s 1864 abortion ban, Harris said: “We all must understand who all is to blame. Donald Trump is the architect of this health care crisis.” 

In May, during an appearance in Florida, Harris said: “As much harm as he has already caused, a second Trump term would be even worse. Donald Trump’s friends in the United States Congress are trying to pass a national ban. And understand: A national ban would outlaw abortion in every single state, even in states like New York and California.” 

Rebouché said: “I look to the ballot initiative as proof that when people go to the ballot box, they care about this issue. … When people went to vote, they did not want their constitutions to restrict reproductive rights. So I think she’s going to bring that to the campaign, the real-world effects of a decision like that.”

Since the Dobbs decision in June 2022, studies have pointed out the dangers patients face when they do not have access to abortion. 

A 25-year-old woman in Texas nearly died in February after she was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy and doctors at Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital refused to perform an abortion, telling her that the pregnancy could be viable, and to go home and wait, according to reporting by the Washington Post. The woman eventually received lifesaving surgery 24 hours later at a different hospital in Texas. 

States with bans and severe restrictions on abortion cost the country billions of dollars in lost labor and productivity. The number of students applying to medical schools in states with bans has declined, with students saying they’re not able to get the complete obstetric training they need there. Maternity wards across the nation have shuttered, creating maternity care deserts in rural areas and leaving patients to drive farther and farther from their homes seeking medical treatment. 

Christina Reynolds is the senior vice president of communications and content at EMILYs List, which works to elect female candidates who support abortion rights.

“The stakes could not be higher in this election in terms of our reproductive freedom in general. It’s not just abortion rights, it’s birth control, it’s IVF [in vitro fertilization], it’s all sorts of things. And what we know is that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance and the Republican majority are a threat to all of those things,” Reynolds said. “And there is only one way to protect your rights, and that is to elect the people who will fight for them.”