Democrats counter Trump rally with reminder that reproductive rights hang in balance

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The Biden-Harris campaign held a press conference in Bucks County with U.S. Representatives Mary Gay Scanlon and Madeleine Dean, Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Joanna McClinton and Ashley Ehasz, who is running for Pennsylvania’s first congressional district against incumbent Brian Fitzpatrick.

The event coincided with former president Donald Trump’s blitzkrieg visit to Pennsylvania to fundraise and host his campaign’s first rally in the region. The Democrats used the opportunity to remind voters about the former president’s role in scaling back access to abortion.

“It is truly a miscarriage of justice that our former president did everything in his power, including in the ninth hour, appointing far right–wing radical extremists to the United States Supreme Court to ensure that women’s rights — the ones that my now late grandmother enjoyed — I no longer have access to, depending on what state that I might live,” Joanna McClinton, Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, told the gathering.

Trump recently appeared to shift on his position regarding reproductive rights saying he does not support a national ban on abortion and that he thinks the issue should be left to the states.

“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both,” he said in a video posted to Truth Social. “And whatever they decide must be the law of the land — in this case, the law of the state.”

It’s the latest shift in Trump’s amorphous and evolving views on abortion. As a candidate in 2016, he said that if abortions were illegal, women seeking abortions should receive “some form of punishment.” He did not specifically say he would ban it nationally. Last month, he said there should be a ban 15 weeks.

During his presidency, however, Trump set off a series of events that led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. By appointing three new justices to the Supreme Court — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — Trump created a new supermajority in the court that struck down the 1973 decision that established and upheld the constitutional right to abortion procedures for nearly 50 years.

As a result, access varies state-by-state, with 16 states having effectively banned access to the procedure and several more limiting it.

Democrats are making it a key issue in the 2024 race. His recent comments appear to be an effort to blunt that criticism in an election where polling shows that a majority of people support reproductive health rights.

McClinton and other Democrats, however, don’t buy that. They argue that Trump will attempt to institute a national ban if he is given another term in office.

“Trump poses an existential threat to abortion rights in Pennsylvania,” U.S. Representative Mary Gay Scanlon said. “If given the chance, he will ban abortion across the country with or without Congress. Donald Trump has also promised to terminate the Affordable Care Act, which would end the health care for millions of women.”