President Biden launched an all-out assault on former President Donald Trump on the second anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, dubbing his GOP rival “the sole person responsible” for states’ abortion restrictions.
Mr. Biden on Monday took the unusual step of posting a video in which he reads Mr. Trump’s boasts on social media about his ability to kill the 1973 Roe decision after “50 years of failure.”
“Decades of progress shattered just because the last guy got four years in the White House,” Mr. Biden says to the camera.
Democrats were outraged by the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that eliminated the nationwide right to abortion and opened the door to state-by-state restrictions on the procedure. But they are happy to use the issue as a weapon against Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and down-ballot Republicans.
Red states across the South and heartland imposed a patchwork of limits on abortion, either banning it outright or after a specific number of weeks into pregnancy, following the 2022 decision. The decision to overturn Roe was made possible by the three right-leaning justices appointed by Mr. Trump.
“The consequences have been devastating: in states across the country, Trump’s allies have enacted extreme and dangerous abortion bans — many with no exception for rape or incest – that are putting women’s lives at risk and threatening doctors with jail time,” Mr. Biden said in a statement from his campaign. “Donald Trump is the sole person responsible for this nightmare.”
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Besides campaign statements, the Biden team is assembling a press conference in Georgia on Monday featuring former “Top Chef” host Padma Lakshmi and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to highlight the Dobbs anniversary.
Mr. Trump says the states should have the final say in whether to restrict abortion or leave broad rights in place.
He’s been reluctant to embrace a federal restriction on the procedure, angering some pro-life allies. However, he enjoys taking credit for eliminating the Roe standard, a longstanding goal of his pro-life allies.
“The people will decide, and that’s the way it should be. The people are now deciding,” Mr. Trump told the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “2024 Road to Majority” conference on Saturday.
Mr. Trump made an open plea to pro-life evangelicals to vote in November.
“We need Christian voters to turn out and the largest numbers ever to tell crooked Joe Biden, ‘You’re fired. You’re fired, Joe. Get out of here,’” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Biden, meanwhile, is pleading with voters to return him to the White House with Democratic majorities in the House and Senate so he can restore the abortion rights that existed before the Dobbs decision. He argues Republicans won’t stop at abortion and could threaten contraception and in-vitro fertilization procedures.
“We won’t stop until we restore the protections of Roe v. Wade for every woman in every state,” Mr. Biden said.
The administration said 21 states have “dangerous and extreme abortion bans” and that one in three women of reproductive age, or about 27 million persons, live in those places.
Officials cited many women who were turned away from hospitals while experiencing health emergencies from their pregnancies.
“This should never happen in America,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
Democrats who control the Senate are heaping pressure on Republicans by holding votes on bills to guarantee access to contraceptives and IVF treatments. GOP blocked consideration of the bills, so Democrats are using the opposition to fuel their campaign message.
The administration pointed to efforts to protect contraception and abortion where it can, including paying for military members’ travel to get an abortion and advocating for abortion pills that are sometimes delivered by mail.
But “the only way to replace the [abortion] right that was lost is a federal law,” said Jennifer Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council. “We will continue to fight for that. That will remain, first and foremost, our vision and intent for the next term.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.