Democrats hope abortion issue will offset doubts about Biden in Michigan
LANSING, MI — LANSING, Mich. (AP) β Two women who campaigned for President Joe Biden after facing medical emergencies over abortion restrictions in their states visited Michigan on Tuesday to highlight what they say are the risks to women’s health since the federal abortion protections were overturned.
Democrats are aiming to make abortion rights a central issue in the battleground state’s 2024 elections, hoping it will appeal to undecided voters and some members of the party who don’t like how Biden is handling the war between Israel and Hamas has dealt with.
βFor all of us across the country, in all fifty states, our rights are at stake this election,β said Amanda Zurawski, a Texas woman who gave birth prematurely, developed sepsis and nearly died after she was initially denied an abortion .
At her side Tuesday in Lansing was Kaitlyn Joshua, a Louisiana woman who said restrictive abortion laws prevented her from getting medical help for a miscarriage.
Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved a citizen-led ballot initiative codifying abortion rights in the state Constitution during the 2022 midterms after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade. The ballot initiative produced record turnout, especially among young voters, leading to the biggest gains for Democrats in decades.
The party hopes to recreate that success this year, but has faced disturbing trends within its base. Wayne County, which includes Detroit and has the largest Democratic voting base in the state, has become the epicenter of opposition to Biden’s handling of the latest war between Israel and Hamas, and some have said they would sit out the election.
Biden and state Democrats hope that highlighting the threat to abortion rights, an issue that has proven to unite the party here, can help preserve the coalition that won him the state in 2020. The president and his allies say a national ban on abortion is possible if former President Donald Trump is re-elected, pointing to Trump’s judicial appointments that paved the way for the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision.
βI’m terrified for women of childbearing age who live in all these states where we’ve seen bans,β said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who also attended the event in Lansing. βAnd I’m also terrified for women of childbearing age here in Michigan, based on what could happen if we have the wrong person as president.β
Republicans, including Trump, are struggling to figure out how to talk about the issue, if at all. In an interview published last week by Time magazine, Trump said it should be left up to states whether to prosecute women for abortions. Some Republicans in Michigan, including U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers, have said the issue of abortion rights in Michigan has been settled and is no longer up for a vote.
Zurawski and Joshua, who traveled to North Carolina and Wisconsin last month to campaign for Biden, took part in similar small events in Detroit and Grand Rapids on Tuesday to share their stories with state lawmakers, local officials and voters.
The Biden campaign sees both women’s stories as powerful firsthand accounts of the growing medical danger they say many women face because of Republican-imposed abortion restrictions. Recent events involving other surrogates for Biden, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, have also focused on abortion rights.
Since gaining full legislative control in 2022, Michigan Democrats have overturned the 1931 abortion ban, banned Michigan companies from firing or retaliating against employees who had abortions, and lifted regulations on abortion clinics.