Vice President Kamala Harris stops in Florida as 6-week abortion ban takes effect
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TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Vice President Kamala Harris spoke in Florida on Wednesday, the day the state’s 6-week abortion ban goes into effect.
Harris stopped Jacksonville to deliver a speech about the “fight for reproductive freedom.”
This comes after President Joe Biden spoke about the issue in Tampa on April 23. Biden vowed to “hold Trump accountable” if reelected in November.
Harris shared stories of pregnant women denied reproductive care and miscarrying women turned away from emergency rooms, eventually developing life-threatening sepsis.
“We trust women,” Harris said on Wednesday. “We trust women to know what’s in their best interest.”
While speaking in Tampa last week, President Joe Biden called Florida’s six-week abortion ban “one of the nation’s most extreme anti-abortion laws.” Abortion rights advocates say it is effectively a total ban: six weeks gestation is before many women know they are pregnant, and the state will still require two in-person visits with the abortion provider, occurring 24 hours apart.
Advocates have scrambled to prepare for the shockwaves Florida’s new law will send throughout the southeastern U.S., including in the critical swing states of Georgia and North Carolina. That’s why the Biden-Harris campaign recently zeroed in on the state, focusing their efforts on urging Florida voters to oppose Republican candidates who support limiting abortion access and calling for them to vote for an amendment that would enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution.
Women from states with more restrictive laws frequently seek abortions in Florida. 6,566 out-of-state residents travelled to the Sunshine State for an abortion in 2023, according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.
Ahead of Harris’ appearance, the Florida GOP released a statement to “welcome” the Vice President to Florida.
“In Florida, especially in Jacksonville, families are suffering under the train-wreck Biden-Harris Bidenomics. Groceries cost more. Gas prices are surging. And the cost of housing continues to push Americans’ wallets to the breaking point,” Chairman Evan Power said in a statement. “Meanwhile, the open border lawlessness of the Biden Bloodbath has made all states – including Florida – a border state. As Biden’s ‘border czar’ the nation’s borders have become a crisis.”
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