Biden seizes on Texas abortion case to ramp up Trump attacks

The Biden marketing campaign is stepping up its abortion assaults on GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, searching for to tie the previous president to a case in Texas the place the state prevented a girl with a nonviable being pregnant from having an abortion. 

The White Home is following the broader Democratic playbook, because the celebration desires to maintain abortion entrance and middle for 2024 following a string of successes because the Supreme Courtroom struck down the constitutional proper to abortion final yr. 

Marketing campaign officers imagine the Texas case highlights a key level of the reelection marketing campaign: that girls’s rights will likely be below assault from a Trump-led authorities. 

“No girl ought to be pressured to go to court docket or flee her house state simply to obtain the well being care she wants,” President Biden stated in a press release. “However that’s precisely what occurred in Texas because of Republican elected officers, and it’s merely outrageous. This could by no means occur in America, interval.”

Ever because the Supreme Courtroom overturned Roe v. Wade final yr, abortion has been a serious headache for Republicans throughout the nation, as candidates and elected officers have struggled to discover a unified message or coverage response. 

Biden marketing campaign officers are drawing a direct line between the Texas case and Trump, who appointed three of the Supreme Courtroom justices that voted to finish Roe.  

“For folk who’re nonetheless confused on who responsible, Donald Trump is on the airwaves proper now bragging about his position in overturning Roe,” Biden-Harris 2024 Communications Director Michael Tyler advised reporters Tuesday. 

“Donald Trump can’t run away from his file and his abortion legacy.” 

The Texas case centered round Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mom of two from the Dallas space. Cox was greater than 20 weeks pregnant with a fetus that had been identified with trisomy 18, a chromosomal anomaly that results in miscarriage, stillbirth or the demise of the toddler inside hours, days or even weeks after start.  

Medical doctors advised her carrying the being pregnant to time period would seemingly jeopardize her future fertility, and she or he and her husband stated they wished extra youngsters. However her medical doctors had been afraid of prosecution or shedding their medical licenses below the state’s near-total ban and refused to supply an abortion till the fetus died. 

So Cox sued in what’s believed to be the primary try by a person girl to problem a state’s abortion ban.  

A district court docket initially granted her a medical exemption, however inside hours Lawyer Common Ken Paxton, a key Trump ally, threatened Cox’s physician and the hospitals she practiced at with prosecution.

“The [temporary restraining order] will expire lengthy earlier than the statute of limitations for violating Texas’ abortion legal guidelines expires,” Paxton warned.

Paxton requested the state Supreme Courtroom to step in. They paused the decrease court docket’s resolution on Friday. On Monday, Cox left the state to acquire an abortion simply hours earlier than the Texas Supreme Courtroom rejected her problem to the state’s ban. Her attorneys stated that not each girl has the power to go away the state to obtain the process.

“Kate’s case has proven the world that abortion bans are harmful for pregnant folks, and exceptions don’t work,” stated Nancy Northup, president and CEO on the Middle for Reproductive Rights, which has been representing Cox.  

“She desperately wished to have the ability to get care the place she lives and get well at house surrounded by household. Whereas Kate had the power to go away the state, most individuals don’t, and a state of affairs like this might be a demise sentence.”  

Democrats in battleground states and the Biden marketing campaign are highlighting Cox’s state of affairs as a cautionary story for voters, an instance of the sorts of abortion bans they accuse Republicans of eager to go nationwide. 

“No person ought to be pressured to flee their house state to get the emergency well being care they want. This was, tragically, a predictable final result of our state’s excessive abortion ban,” stated Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), who’s working to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).  

“It’s time to codify abortion rights and guarantee Texas girls are capable of get the reproductive well being care they want with out worry of criminalization or invasion of their privateness,” Allred stated. 

Republicans in Congress have been largely silent when requested in regards to the case, and the Trump marketing campaign hasn’t commented.  

Biden marketing campaign officers stated they imagine private tales like Cox’s resonate. And so they say the individual most responsible for the chaos of ladies and well being suppliers needing to navigate a nationwide patchwork of abortion bans and unworkable medical exemptions is Trump. 

“It’s vital that we proceed to carry up these tales and actually remind girls what’s at stake on this election, and actually the selection that they’ve earlier than them,” Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Biden’s marketing campaign supervisor, stated on a name with reporters. 

Greer Donley, a legislation professor on the College Pittsburgh, stated the implications of Cox’s case reveals the state-by-state framework adopted within the aftermath of the Dobbs resolution that ended Roe is unworkable. 

“This complete anti-abortion enterprise the place you possibly can sort of categorize and determine the abortions which are quote, ‘good’ and be sure that they’re nonetheless offered will not be working, and it’s truly not possible to make it work,” Donley stated.  

And whereas polls present Individuals typically again some limits on abortion later in being pregnant, the Cox case demonstrates the truth on the bottom is far messier than a easy marketing campaign message. 

“There’s this obsession and this have to attempt to determine the sorts of abortions which are deemed to be therapeutic or ok or medically indicated, medically essential,” Donley stated. “Being pregnant carries inherent medical dangers.”