There are nine more days left on the campaign trail, and Vice President Kamala Harris is moving full steam ahead in relaying the dangers to come if Donald J. Trump is reelected as president.
Her top priority, if she makes history on Nov. 5 as the first woman president-elect, will be restoring pivotal healthcare legislation regarding women’s reproductive freedom. Sweeping abortion bans supported by Trump and Republican state leaders were put in place when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The seminal 1973 court case made it legal for expectant mothers to terminate pregnancies, saying that abortion was a fundamental right. During his tenure as commander in chief from 2016 to 2020, the twice-impeached former leader of the country appointed justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the nation’s highest court.
The hot button topic has been a major point of influence among voters. In a new “CBS Sunday Morning” interview with Norah O’Donnell, Harris said the matter will remain at the top of her task list as president. “I support Roe v. Wade being put back into law by Congress, and to restore the fundamental right of women to make decisions about their own body. It is that basic,” she said.
Under Roe v. Wade, safe abortions can be sought entirely at the discretion of the mother during the first trimester, up until 12 weeks. However, individual state laws dictate circumstances when a pregnancy can be terminated in the second and third trimesters. Procedures that are carried out to preserve the life of the woman also cannot be criminalized, highlighting a stark difference from current bans that threaten legal ramifications for the parent and physicians after six weeks of gestation. O'Donnell pressed about which, if any of the restrictions, Harris would support.
“We would not be debating this if Donald Trump had not hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade,” the presidential candidate said. She then drew attention to recent occurrences of women dying due to delayed medical intervention during miscarriages — care, that if not banned, is the difference maker in life and death.
“What we have seen, as demonstrated last night and every day these last two years, is extraordinary harm that has occurred in America, where women have died because of Trump abortion bans… We have seen extraordinary harm and pain and suffering happen because of what Donald Trump did in intending and effectuating and overturning of Roe v. Wade,” the former California district attorney argued. “Yes, my first priority is to put back in place those protections and to stop this pain, and to stop this injustice that is happening around our country.”
Harris also took aim at Trump’s attempt to distance himself from Project 2025. A conservative-led initiative to restructure rights of LGBTQ+ members, African Americans, women and immigrants, as well as voting access and more. Trump has denied any connection to the plan.
“As you know, I am a former prosecutor. His DNA is all over it. All over it,” said Harris of her opponent's claims. “His running mate [JD Vance] wrote the foreward to the book of the author [Kevin Roberts] of Project 2025. I believe Donald Trump's name appears at least 300 times in Project 2025. And it is a blueprint, a detailed blueprint, that is about the danger and the detail of what Donald Trump and his allies plan if he is in the White House again.”
But when Harris spoke at a voter rally in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Saturday (Oct. 26), she told the crowd of thousands, “Make no mistake, we will win.”