Joe Biden focuses on abortion rights at DNC ​​event 3 weeks from Election Day

CNN
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President Joe Biden will try to keep abortion rights in the spotlight when he speaks at a Democratic National Committee event in Washington, DC on Tuesday, a Democratic official told CNN, as the House Blanche hopes the issue will continue to galvanize voters as the midterm elections approach.

With Election Day three weeks away, Biden will deliver remarks at a DNC event at the Howard Theater in the nation’s capital, according to the Democratic official, who said the president will discuss “the choice voters will face in November. between Republicans who want to ban abortion nationwide with criminal penalties to put doctors in jail if they violate the ban, and Democrats who want to codify (Roe v. Wade) into law to protect liberty reproduction of women.

Biden and many Democrats sought to make abortion rights a central campaign goal after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck down the federal right to abortion.

In political and official venues around the White House, the president has focused on the fight to protect abortion rights in recent weeks, pushing back against Republican-led efforts to enact abortion restrictions in federal and state level. As his administration unveiled new measures to strengthen abortion protections earlier this month, Biden said he would not “sit back and let Republicans across the country take extreme policies.”

The White House has taken up a proposal by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina that would impose a federal ban on most abortions at 15 weeks gestation. At a Democratic fundraiser in New York last month, the president described Graham’s bill as emblematic of Republicans becoming “more extreme in their positions.”

As the midterm elections approach, Biden has argued that voters need to elect more Democrats in order to codify Roe’s protections against Wade in law. He also pledged to veto any bill that would ban abortions at the federal level if Republicans took control of Congress.

More than a dozen states have seen abortion bans go into effect since the Dobbs ruling, affecting nearly 30 million women of childbearing age.

While Democrats hope abortion rights will motivate voters, a recent CNN/SSRS poll found the economy remains top of mind for voters, with 90% of registered voters saying it was extremely or very important. for their vote. Less – 72% – said abortion was also important.

A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey, however, found that the issue of abortion was a key motivator for American voters this year, with 50% saying the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe made them more motivated to go to the polls this year.

“Voters need to make their voices heard,” Biden said in June following the Dobbs decision. “This fall, Roe is on the ballot. Individual freedoms are on the ballot. The right to privacy, to liberty, to equality, they are all on the ballot.