Kentucky woman describes getting pregnant at 12 when her stepfather raped her in brutal new ad for Kamala Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign on Wednesday launched a scathing new ad featuring a woman who became pregnant at age 12 after being raped by her stepfather.
The one-minute ad, titled “Monster,” comes as the Democratic presidential candidate makes overturning Roe v. Wade and abortion access central to her White House campaign.
The commercial is narrated by 22-year-old Hadley Duvall from Kentucky, who tells her horrific story and publicly advocates for abortion rights.
“I was five years old when my stepfather first abused me. I just felt like I was alone on a planet with a monster,” Duvall says.
“I was 12 when he got me pregnant,” she can be heard saying in a video that shows a close-up of Duvall’s face.
In a new ad for the Harris campaign, 22-year-old Hadley Duvall recounts how she became pregnant at age 12 by her stepfather, who raped her.
The ad also shows pictures of Duvall when she was younger. In one photo, she wears braces and in another, she wears a cheerleading uniform.
“I remember thinking, ‘I have to crawl out of my skin,'” Duvall says. “I can’t be myself right now. This can’t be it. I didn’t know what to do. I was a child. I didn’t know what it meant to be pregnant.”
“But I had options,” Duvall says directly into the camera.
“Because Donald Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, girls and women across the country have lost the right to choose, even rape or incest,” she adds.
“Donald Trump did this. He took away our freedom,” she finished on camera.
The song behind the ad is by singer Billie Eilish, who on Tuesday voiced her support for Harris for president.
Harris’ campaign ad featuring Hadley Duvall features images of her as a young girl, as she recounts her rape and pregnancy at age 12.
Abortion rights and the overturning of Roe v. Wade are a galvanizing issue for Democrats and will be a key issue in the 2024 election.
Harris has called for enshrining the abortion protections once guaranteed by Roe, before the landmark 1973 decision was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022.
Democrats accuse Trump of being responsible for overturning the Roe ruling with Dobbs, as he nominated three of the six conservative justices who decided the case.
The former president praised the justices who overturned Roe and stressed that he has no regrets.
Trump now says the issue of abortion should be left to the states, and he supports exceptions for rape and incest. But he refused to say during the recent presidential debate whether he would sign a national abortion ban.
The Republican presidential candidate has also said he will vote against Florida’s proposal to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and end his home state’s six-week ban on abortion.
Harris has criticized Trump for nominating three of the six Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022. Trump has praised the move and now argues that abortion access should be left up to the states, after previously indicating he was open to a national ban.
Republicans have tried to turn the tables on Democrats by accusing them of extreme behavior. But when the vice president talks about protecting abortion access during the campaign, she often gets the loudest applause at her events.
The defeat of Roe energized Democrats and independents in the 2022 midterm elections and helped avert the so-called Republican red wave.
Duvall’s new ad for Harris’ campaign is one of several times she has publicly rallied around Democrats in the run-up to the 2024 election.
She recently joined a number of women who spoke about abortion rights at the Democratic National Convention.
In a dramatic moment, Duvall spoke about her stepfather’s rape onstage at the Chicago convention, in front of thousands in the arena and millions watching on TV, then went straight into a debate with Trump about the issue.
“He calls it something beautiful. What is so beautiful about a child who has to carry her parents’ child?” she said. “There are other survivors who don’t have a choice.”
The audience gasped audibly and became emotional when they heard her words.
Abortion rights advocate Hadley Duvall to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 19
Duvall recently joined the Harris campaign for the “Fight for Reproductive Freedom” bus tour with a stop in Pennsylvania.
Before dropping out of the race, she was also featured in a campaign ad for President Biden in which she shared her story. She first shared her story publicly in 2023, after an abortion ban went into effect in her home state of Kentucky.