Restore Roe: Biden and Harris warn supporters what a second Trump term could mean for bodily autonomy

Former President Donald Trump is a threat to the right to control one's own body: That was the message delivered by President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and their spouses at a Tuesday afternoon "Restore Roe" campaign rally in northern Virginia.

Speaking at George Mason University’s Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas, near Washington, D.C., Biden and Harris addressed an enthusiastic crowd before a banner that read “Restore Roe” and signs emblazoned with “Defend Choice.”

The rally came as much of the Republican political world focused on the New Hampshire primary, where twice-impeached and multiply indicted former President Donald Trump was expected to handily beat his remaining competitor, former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

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The rally was the second in as many days for the Biden-Harris campaign to outline an American future in which abortion rights and other rights to bodily autonomy are protected.

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff opened the rally by telling the audience how he found out that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling in 2022.

“The vice president called me from Air Force Two and delivered this distressing and abhorrent news,” Emhoff said. “And just like many of you, she was outraged.”

Emhoff explained that parents around the country are having to take into consideration where their kids will go to college because of the restrictions on bodily autonomy in states like Florida and Texas.

“Donald Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans that created this new reality where families are living in fear and doctors are worried about helping patients,” Emhoff said.

Emhoff, invoking his wife’s name, asked, “Isn’t she awesome?”

“We cannot stop fighting until we restore Roe as the law of the land,” Emhoff said as he introduced the first lady, Dr. Jill Biden.
She began her remarks by retelling a story about a high school friend of hers who had become pregnant in the 1960s and had to be declared mentally unfit during a psychiatric examination in order to terminate her pregnancy.

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Dr. Biden pointed out that in a post-Dobbs world, pregnant people again face extreme obstacles to accessing the care they need.

Next, Harris, fresh off the launch of a travel push to explain this election's stakes for the right of people to control their bodies with a speech in Wisconsin on the 51st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, explained the importance of securing reproductive rights for all Americans.

“We have in Joe Biden a courageous fighter for our most fundamental freedoms as Americans including of course the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body and not have their government tell them what they’re supposed to do,” Harris said.

In the 19 months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, extremists have passed laws that criminalize and punish women, she said.

“What they need to know is that we will not allow it,” Harris said of Americans who have voted to protect abortion rights in states across the country.

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Before introducing the president, Amanda Zurawski, from Austin, shared the story of her pregnancy in 2023 that left her in critical condition after she was denied an abortion in Texas. At 18 weeks into her pregnancy, Zurawski experienced rupture of membranes.

Because her doctors at a Catholic hospital could still detect fetal cardiac activity, she was denied an abortion. After three days, she developed sepsis, and despite then receiving an emergency abortion, she was left fighting for her life in the hospital.

President Biden thanked Zurawski for her bravery and vowed to protect the rights of Americans to access the medical treatment they need.

“As long as I have the powers of the presidency know this, if Congress passes a national abortion [ban] bill, I will veto it,” Biden said to cheers.

Biden highlighted that the Dobbs decision affects the right to privacy for all Americans, including “the right to marry who you love.”

The president also said that Republicans have no clue “about the power of women in America.”

The one person who is most clueless about that power is Trump, Biden added.

Harris’s Monday visit to Wisconsin, a pivotal state in the 2024 election, highlighted the ongoing battle over women’s reproductive rights. She criticized Trump and MAGA Republicans for undermining these rights, emphasizing the urgency of the situation and the need for continued action.

This tour is part of a broader strategy by the Biden-Harris campaign to bring reproductive rights to the forefront of the 2024 election discourse. Advocates and political strategists agree that the campaign recognizes the critical importance of the bodily autonomy issue for women and families and communities across the United States.

As the tour progresses, Harris is expected to continue to draw attention to the challenges and setbacks in reproductive health care caused by the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Several times during President Biden’s speech, protesters disrupted his remarks to call attention to the war in Gaza and voice their displeasure with the administration’s handling of the Middle East conflict. The crowd broke into cheers of “Let’s go, Joe” and “Four more years” each time a protester was escorted from the room.