President Joe Biden's campaign is using the second anniversary of a Supreme Court's decision overturning abortion rights Monday to spotlight Donald Trump role in the in ruling, an issue Democrats think will be pivotal in this year's election.
Both Vice President Kamala Harris and First Lady Jill Biden will speak Monday, hoping to mobilize volunteers and voters around protecting the patchwork remains of abortion access in the country, after holding events over the weekend.
"Donald Trump is the sole person responsible for this nightmare," Biden said in a statement on Monday.
In Maryland, Harris will call Trump "guilty" in the "case of the stealing of reproductive freedom from the women of America," according to an early version of her remarks, which are meant to highlight her past as a prosecutor.
Trump appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices during his 2017-21 presidency, forcing a change in the Court's balance that led to the abortion ruling in 2022.
Since the 2022 ruling, more than 20 Republican-led states have imposed restrictions.
Abortion access is now almost non-existent in Southern states, forcing tens of thousands of women to cross state lines for abortions, and sparking a rise in medication abortion.
The unpopularity of the decision even in some conservative states made it a political liability for Republicans during mid-term elections in 2022.
Trump said in April that abortion laws should be set by individual U.S. states, stepping away from a national abortion ban that anti-abortion groups and some parts of his Republican Party have pushed for.
On Saturday, Trump addressed a crowd of evangelical voters at the Faith & Freedom Coalition in Washington. "We have also achieved what the pro-life movement fought to get for 49 years, and we've gotten abortion out of the federal government and back to the states," he said.
Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Movement, said some Democratic-led states have "tragically" allowed for abortion services for women from other states.
"The blue (Democratic) states would not only continue the bloodshed, they would also accelerate the onslaught," she said.
WOMEN'S STRIKES
Women's rights groups are planning "women's strikes" in dozens of U.S. cities on Monday to mark the anniversary, urging women not to go to work or spend money, and to wear red and protest instead.
Jill Biden travels to Pittsburgh and to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a city Trump won by 15 points in the 2020 election, when he lost the presidency to Biden.
Harris campaigns in Maryland and swing state Arizona on Monday. Both have competitive Senate races in November.
On the other side of the divide, anti-abortion activists traveled to Washington over the weekend to celebrate the Supreme Court decision.
Four years ago, Biden rarely mentioned abortion rights in his election campaign, fearing the issue could alienate moderate voters.
Biden and Trump remain tied in national polls with less than five months to go before the election, while Trump has the edge in the battleground states that will decide it, polls conducted after Trump's felony convictions show.
On economic issues like inflation, Trump scores higher with voters overall than Biden.
But polls and the results of state ballot initiatives have shown that a large majority of voters reject strict abortion bans. Biden and Trump will debate on June 27, for the first time this election campaign cycle.
