Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris appeared alongside superstar Beyoncé on Friday night to encourage voter turnout and highlight the differences between the two parties on reproductive rights just days before voting closes.
The rally at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston, Texas, followed months of speculation about whether Beyoncé would publicly support Vice President Harris ahead of the November 5 presidential election. The two-hour event featured other stars including Willie Nelson and Jessica Alba, as well as women detailing their denial of medical care for pregnancy complications in Texas after the abortion ban went into effect.
Beyoncé, who has won more than 30 Grammy Awards in her career as well as hundreds of other awards, said casting a vote is “one of the most valuable tools” Americans employ to decide the future of the country.
“We are on the cusp of an incredible change, on the brink of history,” Beyoncé said, adding that she was not speaking at the rally as a celebrity or politician.
“I’m here as a mother,” she said. “A mother who cares deeply about the world in which my children and all our children live. A world where we have the freedom to control our bodies.”
“Scary Reality”
Harris, who is in an extremely tight race against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, said the abortion bans and restrictions introduced over the past two years are “devastating.”
“We see the terrifying reality that women and families face every day,” Harris said. “Stories are vivid, hard to hear and hard to tell.”
Harris said there are also many stories that women and their families don’t want to talk about publicly that involve the challenges they face accessing medical care for pregnancy complications.
“Countless women and the people who love them, who suffer in silence – women who are told they did something wrong, as if they were criminals, as if they were alone,” Harris said. “And these women. I say – and I think I speak for all of us – we see you and we are here with you.”
Harris said that if voters give Trump another four years in the Oval Office, he will likely appoint more Supreme Court justices, which she believes will have a negative impact on the country.
“If re-elected, he would likely appoint one, if not two, members of the United States Supreme Court,” Harris said. “At this point, Donald Trump will fill the court with five of nine justices… who will have lifetime appointments; shaping your lives and the lives of future generations.”
Texas has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, which has led to concerns about maternity staff, how the country deals with maternal mortality AND testimony before Congress regarding women forced to leave the state to get facilitate for pregnancy complications.
In Texas, anti-abortion groups also decided to file a federal lawsuit in November 2022, challenging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of medical abortion.
According to estimates, dual drug therapy consisting of mifepristone and misoprostol is currently approved for employ up to 10 weeks of pregnancy and is used in approximately 63% of abortions nationwide. data from the Guttmacher Institute.
The case went to the US Supreme Court, which ruled earlier this year, these organizations did not have standing to bring the lawsuit, but the judges did not address the validity of the anti-abortion groups’ arguments.
Speaking at “Ground Zero”
On Friday before the rally began, Harris told reporters that Republican lawmakers in Texas had set the state to “ground zero in this fundamental fight for women’s freedom to make decisions about their own bodies.”
Harris maintained that access to reproductive rights, including abortion, is “not just a political debate” or “some theoretical concept.”
“Real harm has happened in this country, real suffering has happened,” Harris told reporters. “People are dying and it’s important to highlight this issue because it is one of the most important issues that Americans will address when they vote for the next president of the United States.”
During his first term, Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices who later, along with other conservatives, invalidated the constitutional right to abortion established in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case.
Supreme Court ruling two years ago he sent “the authority to regulate abortion… to the people and their elected representatives.”
This has led to a hodgepodge of laws: 13 states ban abortion, six states limit access at 6 to 12 weeks, five states set the gestation cutoff at 15 to 22 weeks, 17 states restrict access to abortion after viability, and nine states do not sets a limit for the pregnancy date, according to KFF.
Polls confirm support for access to abortion
According to them, public support for access to abortion has outweighed support for restricting access for decades Consistent voting from the Pew Research Center.
The most recent survey from May shows that about 63% of Americans want abortion to be legal in most or all cases, while 36% said they believe it should be illegal in most or all cases.
Additional survey from Pew shows that 67% of Harris supporters think access to abortion is “very important” – almost double the share of Biden voters who said this four years ago, though slightly lower than the share of midterm Democratic voters who said this in 2022 (74%).
“And about a third of Trump supporters (35%) now say abortion is very important to their vote — down 11 points from 2020.”
In addition to playing a role in the presidential election, voters in 10 states – Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota – will speak directly about access to abortion through voting questions.
Congress could override any protections or restrictions on abortion access enacted in states if the House and Senate ever reach an agreement on the legislation and a future president signs it.
Republicans are slightly favored to take control of the Senate for two more years after the election, while control of the House is considered to be a toss-up, as is the presidential race.
