Biden to deliver abortion-focused speech in Florida

President Joe Biden will deliver an abortion-focused speech in Florida next week, capitalizing on a looming abortion ban there to make a broader case for reproductive rights.

At a campaign event in Tampa on Tuesday, Biden is expected to tie the 2024 election to access to reproductive rights across the country, a campaign aide confirmed to POLITICO. NBC News first reported Biden’s planned speech.

The Biden campaign has hammered former President Donald Trump over abortion in recent weeks, after Trump announced this month that he would defer to state-level abortion laws. In quick succession, a number of state-level cases put Trump and the GOP on the defensive on the issue. In Arizona, the state Supreme Court reinstated an 1864-era abortion ban, while in Florida, a six-week ban, approved by the state Legislature, will soon go into effect.

Biden’s addressing of abortion head-on is also significant, as the devout Catholic has often displayed discomfort with the issue. Instead, he’s regularly leaned on other messengers, including Vice President Kamala Harris and women who have been directly affected, to argue for abortion rights. His campaign has released several testimonial-style ads that feature women sharing personal stories about abortion.

“Since the overturning of Roe, whenever reproductive rights have been on the ballot, they have won, and this November will be no different,” Morgan Mohr, the Biden campaign’s senior adviser for reproductive rights, said in a statement. “While Donald Trump continues to brag about unleashing these extreme and dangerous bans, President Joe Biden is running to restore reproductive freedom.”

Florida’s conservative-leaning Supreme Court this month upheld the state’s six-week ban, which is set to go into effect on May 1. The law will effectively end access to abortion in the Southeast. Thousands of patients from across the South travel to Florida from neighboring states with stricter abortion laws to receive the procedure, though that practice will end with the implementation of the law.

Florida voters will also have a chance to protect abortion this November if 60 percent of them support an abortion initiative that will appear on the ballot. The initiative will allow abortions up to the time of viability, which is generally considered around 24 weeks.