President Joe Biden will travel to Florida to discuss abortion rights ahead of a six-week abortion ban taking effect. File Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/UPI
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April 23 (UPI) — President Joe Biden will travel to Florida on Tuesday afternoon to discuss abortion rights in the state.
Biden will speak at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa during an invitation-only event where he is expected to highlight Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signing a six-week abortion ban into place this month and a ballot initiative enshrining Floridians to an abortion.
He will also aim to tie President Donald Trump to abortion bans with the Biden campaign noting he approved three conservative justices who went on to vote in favor of overturning federal abortion protections established by Roe vs. Wade.
“Trump will do everything he can to ban abortion nationwide,” Biden’s spokesperson Michael Tyler said on a call with reporters. “Whenever Trump has power, he’s used it to take away rights from women.”
The law, set to take effect on May 1, bans abortion after the gestational age of the fetus reaches more than six weeks, a period before most women even know they are pregnant.
It includes exceptions for cases in which a pregnancy resulted from rape, incest or human trafficking but requires a physician to report the crime to the central abuse hotline.
While in Florida, Biden will instead aim to promote a state referendum to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.
Trump and Republicans have dominated statewide Florida politics for the past two presidential cycles, with the former president winning the Sunshine State twice. Republicans also control the governor’s office, secretary of state, attorney general and both chambers of the state legislature as well as both U.S. Senate seats and 20 of the states 28 seats in the U.S. House.
Tyler said, though, that the Democrats are convinced the abortion issue could swing the state back toward the Democrats.
“The idea that Donald Trump has the state in the bag could not be further from the truth,” said. “He owns not only the state of abortion rights across the country but he owns the restrictions that we’re seeing play out in Florida.
“And so, yes, that means that there’s an opportunity for us, and we’re taking it very seriously.”
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This story was originally published April 23, 2024, 9:24 AM.