Jill Biden warned that women could die under Donald Trump’s presidency as she highlighted the importance of reproductive rights in this year’s election.
The first lady warned during a rally in Arizona to get votes for Kamala Harris that Trump was taking the country back to the time before Roe vs. Wade, after his Supreme Court picks helped overturn the landmark ruling on abortion rights. .
‘Secrecy, shame, silence, danger, even death. That was the reality then, and that is where Donald Trump has left women today,” she said.
She noted that after Roe was repealed, she was “shocked and devastated, but looking back, I knew I shouldn’t have been so surprised.” I knew Donald Trump had picked three judges to restrict reproductive freedom.”
Democrats see abortion rights as a winning issue because they have used it to rally their base in the 2022 midterm elections.
The first lady, who is campaigning in five states for Harris, will repeatedly highlight the issue during her stops in key battleground states.
Jill Biden warns that women could die under Donald Trump’s presidency
Abortion is a major issue in Arizona, where Proposition 139, an amendment to the Arizona Constitution to add a fundamental right to abortion, is on the agenda in November.
The stop for the first lady was part of the Harris campaign’s Reproductive Freedom Bus Tour, which includes several stops in Arizona.
Actors Bryan Cranston and Sophia Bush are part of the tour. Biden greeted them both with hugs as she thanked the volunteers on the bus.
Trump has tried to take credit for the overturn of Roe vs. Wade, which has long been a goal of evangelical and conservative voters, while avoiding the political fallout. He has said abortion rights should be decided by the states.
Biden warned during her remarks Saturday evening in Phoenix that “our daughters and granddaughters today are living with fewer rights than we had.”
On Nov. 10, states will have abortion measures on their ballots that either seek to affirm that the state constitution protects the right to abortion or that nothing in the constitution grants such a right, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
In the wake of the June 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 13 states have total abortion bans and 28 states have abortion bans based on gestational age.
‘The government should not tell women what to do. So let’s elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz,” Biden told the cheering crowd.
She urged people to do this for the “generations of women who have fought for our rights and for all the men who understand that this is their fight too.”
And she added: “Young girls will grow up in the world we will decide in November.”
Arizona is one of the most contentious battlegrounds of the 2024 elections, with both the Harris and Trump campaigns devoting significant resources to it.
And it’s where Jill Biden made her first-ever campaign stop for Kamala Harris, touting her candidacy in two days of events.
Trump will hold a rally in Phoenix on Sunday. He leads 51% to Harris’ 46% in the state a New York Times/Sienna survey found.
Donald Trump has said abortion should be decided by the states
The first lady used her previous events in Arizona to criticize Trump for his support of abortion bans and tax breaks for corporations, describing the former president as greedy and selfish.
She also addressed “lies” about Harris, who has been the subject of conspiracy theories and false claims from Trump.
“You’re probably hearing all kinds of lies about Kamala,” she said Friday evening at an event in Yuma. She then described Harris’ work as attorney general, senator and vice president of California.
Trump has falsely accused Harris of lying about her work at McDonalds as a teenager and misrepresented the role she played in the Biden administration’s work on border security.
Jill Biden painted a more compassionate picture of the Democratic presidential nominee as she talked about her work fighting crime as attorney general and how she helped a high school friend who was living in an abusive situation.
“That’s the Kamala Harris I know: a fast, tough, compassionate, decisive leader, and that’s the kind of president you Arizona deserves,” she said.
And Biden repeatedly attacked Trump for his role in appointing Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe vs. Wade undo.
“Donald Trump’s abortion ban has deprived women of the ability to make their own health care decisions,” she said.
“No one has to give up their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government should not tell women what to do with their bodies.”
In addition to the first lady, the Harris campaign has sent running mate Tim Walz and second gentleman Doug Emhoff to Arizona.
Harris spent Thursday and Friday in the Phoenix area, where she also focused on the fight for abortion rights.
Jill Biden made her first campaign stop for Kamala Harris, rallying voters in Arizona
Early voting has begun in Arizona and the first lady reminded people that President Biden won the state in 2020 by just 10,457 votes.
On Saturday morning in Phoenix, she spoke to a group of teachers who went out to collect votes, and she reminded them that every vote counts.
“You know, the first time I voted, I almost didn’t vote for my future husband. It’s true. Can you imagine if I hadn’t done that? I mean, thank God I did that,” she said.
She commented she was a student at the University of Delaware at the time and Joe Biden was running for senator.
“Actually, Joe won that election by only 3,000 votes, so it could have easily gone the other way,” she said.
This is Jill Biden’s fourth time in Arizona this year, but her first appearance for Kamala Harris.
She began a campaign swing for the Democratic candidate in Yuma, Arizona, on Friday.
She will be in Carson City and Reno, Nevada on Sunday, while she will spend Monday in suburban Detroit and in Madison, Wisconsin.
Her trip ends Tuesday with a stop in her hometown of Philadelphia.