WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden had ample opportunity during the presidential debate to lay out a clear vision on abortion rights amid increasing restrictions and worsening health care for women since Roe v. Wade, a move his campaign sees as a key motivator for voters.
That didn’t happen.
Biden’s confused and even nonsensical answers to questions about abortion rights on Thursday night – coupled with Trump’s outrageous but untested claims about Democrats’ views – were panned by some abortion rights activists, who called the performance a failure.
“Look, no one who cares about abortion access was happy with Biden’s comments or his performance last night,” said Kellie Copeland, the executive director of Abortion Forward, an advocacy group in Ohio. “We need better — we need a lot better.”
To put it more bluntly, “He failed us last night,” said Sarah Garza Resnick of Personal PAC, an Illinois group that supports candidates who support abortion rights.
The issue of reproductive rights has already proven to be a winning one for the Democrats. In referendums, voters consistently choose to protect abortion rights. According to AP-NORC data from last June, about two-thirds of adults in the US and nearly nine in ten Democrats believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Biden is likely to win easily on this issue.
On Friday, the president recovered somewhat, telling his supporters at a rally in North Carolina: “Folks, despite all his lies, we learned some important truths about Donald Trump last night. We learned that he is still proud to be the person who overturned Roe v. Wade.”
But the night before, Biden seemed unable to explain the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling that legalized abortion.
When asked by moderators whether he supported certain restrictions on abortion, Biden said he “supported Roe v. Wade, which covered three trimesters. The first time is between a woman and a doctor. The second time is between a doctor and an extreme situation. The third time is between the doctor, so between the woman and the state.”
Abortion rights advocates lamented that an opportunity had been missed to make clear what was at stake.
“Biden had a wonderful opportunity to show the difference between him and Trump in who stands for abortion access and who doesn’t,” said Nourbese Flint, president of the national abortion justice group All Above All Action Fund. “And I think he really missed the mark.”
The dismantling of federal protections has left the issue largely in the hands of state legislatures, where laws vary widely. At least 25 million women now live in states with abortion restrictions.
And since Roe’s death, the reproductive health situation in the United States has become increasingly precarious. Women who never wanted to terminate their pregnancies have nearly died because they were unable to get emergency treatment. Treatment for miscarriages has been delayed. In states with strict bans, routine reproductive health care has dried up. In Alabama, fertility treatments have been temporarily suspended.
The Supreme Court revisited the issue on Thursday, ruling for now that women in Idaho can get abortions in medical emergencies; the state’s strict abortion ban generally doesn’t allow that, and the Biden administration filed suit. Trump even said he was in favor of exceptions to bans – but Biden didn’t utilize that option.
Trump again boasted that he appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
And he falsely claimed that Democrat-led states were passing laws “allowing you to execute babies after birth.” Infanticide is a crime in all states, and no state has passed a law allowing the killing of babies after birth.
Abortion rights advocates say such wording and “late-term abortions” are a not-so-subtle attempt to stigmatize abortions later in pregnancy. But even those are extremely uncommon. In 2020, less than 1% of abortions in the United States were performed at 21 weeks or later, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And these types of abortions are usually the result of grave complications.
“Donald Trump has shown us exactly who he is and what he is capable of. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that if given the chance, he will enact a national ban on abortion,” said Mini Timmaraju, director of Reproductive Freedom for All. But even as abortion rights groups criticized Biden’s performance, they closed ranks around the president, praising his record on abortion rights and raising concerns about what Trump might do if he wins the election.
“The choice between the two presidential candidates is crystal clear: Donald Trump poses an existential threat to women in America,” said a joint statement from several groups on Friday.
Biden is hardly the type to loudly promote his abortion, and has long been seen as an imperfect messenger: He is an 81-year-old Catholic who still avoids using the word. But his evolution over the years mirrors that of the Democratic Party as a whole. And the way he talks about it – as a matter of health care and personal freedom – resonates with voters.
Vice President Kamala Harris has been the administration’s chief spokesperson on the issue, but the Biden campaign has also fielded a growing group of women who are speaking to voters about how the lack of access to abortion has affected them. These are women who never intended to end their pregnancies but who have been drawn into the medical confusion created by Roe. The Biden campaign released an ad Thursday featuring one of them.
Nevertheless, Biden missed significant opportunities during the debate to verify Trump’s statements and clarify untruths.
“It was his duty to call out the lies,” said Jennifer Driver, senior director of reproductive rights at the nonprofit State Innovation Exchange. “He just couldn’t accurately and effectively rebut the lies that were being spread. And if he doesn’t do it in real time, viewers won’t know what’s wrong.”
About 4 in 10 approve of Biden’s handling of abortion policy – making it one of his better issues – even though many disagree with his approach, according to a novel AP-NORC poll. Seven in 10 Democrats say they approve, compared with about 3 in 10 independents and about 2 in 10 Republicans.
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Christine Fernando reported from Chicago. Associated Press writer Linley Sanders contributed to this report.
