Biden campaign says Kate Cox abortion case shows 'chaos and cruelty' of post-Roe laws

WASHINGTON – A Texas mother denied an abortion recommended by her doctor is the “unspeakable reality” women are facing because of former President Donald Trump, Biden campaign officials charged Tuesday.

“As the chaos and cruelty created by Trump’s work overturning Roe v. Wade continues to worsen all across the country, stories like Kate Cox’s in Texas have become all too common,” campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez told reporters.

The campaign, which has promised to put reproductive rights “front and center” of the 2024 presidential campaign, pounced on the Texas Supreme Court’s ruling Monday that Cox, a Dallas area mother carrying a fetus with a fatal condition, did not qualify for an abortion under state laws based on her doctor's "good faith belief" that she needs the procedure.

Biden himself, in a statement released later that did not mention Trump, called it "simply outrageous" that Cox had to "flee her home state just to receive the health care she needs."

"This should never happen in America, period," Biden said.

More than one in three women of reproductive age now live under an effective ban on abortion, Rodriguez said.

And Trump will try to impose a national abortion ban if he returns to the White House, she charged, while Biden “will defend a woman’s right to choose.”

While Trump appointed three of the five Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, he hasn’t endorsed a federal ban on abortion. He’s also called Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signing of a six-week ban on the procedure a “terrible mistake,” and has repeatedly criticized fellow Republicans for the way they talk about the issue.

But Trump has also said “there of course remains a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life."

“I would sit down with both sides and I’d negotiate something,” Trump said in September on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The Biden campaign continually draws attention to a comment Trump made in 2016 that women needed to face “some form of punishment” for violating abortion bans. Trump quickly retracted that comment. But the Biden campaign said he “can’t run away from the stories that are coming out of states.”

“In every single case,” said communications director Michael Tyler, “we’ll make sure that the American people know that Donald Trump is to blame.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden campaign blames Trump for Texas abortion denial