VP Kamala Harris denounces Florida's 6-week abortion ban in Jacksonville campaign speech

Hours after Florida enacted a strict six-week abortion ban, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke in Jacksonville against it — and against similar efforts across the country to restrict the procedure.

Harris tied the bans to former President Donald Trump who she said has “bragged” about ending national abortion protections through his appointments of three conservative Supreme Court justices.

“Here's what a second Trump term looks like: more bans, more suffering, less freedom,” Harris said during her campaign speech in Jacksonville Wednesday. “But we are not going to let that happen.”

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Her speech against what she called “Trump abortion bans” came as the Southeast grapples with how to provide abortion care not just to Florida residents, but to the surrounding region that had come to rely on the state’s access.

Democrats nationally and at the state level have pushed the issue as a defining difference between Biden and Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and have repeatedly blamed Trump for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Trump has changed his public opinion on abortion throughout the years, but he recently said he was the “person proudly responsible” for ending the constitutional right to abortion. In an April interview with Time Magazine, Trump said he would leave abortion policies up to the states, including if they were to monitor pregnancies or prosecute the people having procedures past when the law permits.

“It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not," Trump said in the Time article. "It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.”

Harris countered that Trump would sign a national ban if in office and pointed to Biden as the president who would reinstate the protections of Roe v. Wade.

“Donald Trump was the president who took away the protections of Roe,” Harris said. “Joe Biden will be the president who puts the protections of Roe back in place.”

Harris, Florida leaders look to November

Harris flew at midday into Jacksonville International Airport where Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan, who also opposes the new state law, greeted her. They spoke for several minutes on the tarmac before they headed toward the Prime Osborn Convention Center where Harris delivered her speech.

Deegan, state Rep. Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, and state Sen. Tracie Davis, D-Jacksonville, spoke ahead of Harris and rallied voters to prepare for November — for the presidential election and the voter amendment that could reinstate abortion access in the state.

Deegan, who has publicly stated she is pro-choice, spoke primarily on the need for privacy. She likened the new law to that of her own medical history with breast cancer and asked the crowd to imagine a reality in which the government dictated to doctors the kind of treatment that would have been available for her.

“Imagine if the government took away the freedom to determine my own treatment,” Deegan said. “Politicians prescribing what medicine, for how long and at what physical and mental cost.  Think of how much closer we are to that today than we were yesterday because if the government can reach its way into the OB office or a fertility clinic, where I ask you will it stop?”

Davis also referred to her own experience having an ectopic pregnancy that required a medical abortion. She, her husband and her doctor made the decision, she said, and the government should not be involved.

She said women should not feel ashamed for their choices.

"We will not stand here and accept anyone legislating when women do with our bodies," Davis said. "We will not stand here and let them continue to try and control us. I said 'try' because November will change all of it."

Harris said under the Biden administration, the government would “never come between a woman and her doctor.”

“Starting this morning, women in Florida became subject to an abortion ban so extreme it applies before many women even know they're pregnant, which by the way, tells us the extremists who wrote this ban either don't know how a woman's body works or they simply don't care,” Harris said.

In contrast, the head of the Duval County Republican Party, Dean Black, released a statement calling the Biden position “extreme.”

“Democrats know that the past four years of the Biden Administration have been a failure for Floridians and the American people,” Black said in a statement. “This desperate attempt to rally their base through far-left issues will fail at the ballot box. Now is the time to get involved.”

State of abortion in Florida, greater Southeast region

Florida has acted as an abortion access point in the Southeast since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 as surrounding states quickly limited or outright banned the procedure.

Over 7,000 people traveled from out-of-state to have an abortion in Florida last year, according to data from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.

Maintaining that access became uncertain when the Florida Legislature enacted a 15-week ban in 2022. A lawsuit from Planned Parenthood and abortion clinics throughout the state halted the measure until the Florida Supreme Court deemed it legal on April 1 of this year.

The ruling started the clock for an even more restrictive six-week ban the Legislature passed in 2023. But, the court also approved a ballot amendment going before voters in November that could protect abortion access in the state.

If passed, the amendment would allow abortions up to fetal viability, usually considered about 24 weeks. The amendment reads:

“No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”

Seven other states — California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Vermont — have approved ballot amendments in support of abortion, but Florida has a higher hurdle for clearance and needs 60% of the vote to pass.

Abortion has become a key election point this cycle, and Democrats have emphasized efforts to overturn strict bans and enshrine rights to the procedure in Republican-leaning states.

Democratic Party chairs from Florida, Georgia and North Carolina rallied in Tallahassee against the bans Tuesday ahead of Harris’ trip. Nikki Fried, the Florida chair, blamed Trump for the state of abortion care in the country and encouraged voters to head to the polls.

“Florida voters are our last line of defense for millions of women across the South,” Nikki Fried said. “Voters can reverse the extreme ban and restore reproductive freedom in November.”

Group protests Harris’ visit

Conservatives and abortion opponents have applauded Florida’s effort to restrict abortion, some even calling for a complete ban. At least one anti-abortion group protested Harris’ visit.

The Students for Life of America rallied outside a Jacksonville Planned Parenthood Wednesday morning before the speech.

The two organizers, both 2023 college graduates, said they supported a complete national ban on abortion, without exceptions for rape or incest.

They moved their protest to the convention center in order to show the “pro-life movement isn’t just drowned out by the Biden administration.”

“We definitely need to make a stand and speak up for those that can’t speak up for themselves,” Kristen Wayne, a 2023 University of South Florida graduate, said.

A larger pro-Palestine group also protested Harris' visit, standing outside the convention center. Harris and the Biden administration have faced strong opposition for the handling of the Israel-Palestine conflict from within the Democratic Party.

Sara Mahmoud with the Jacksonville Palestine Solidarity Network attended the protest and has organized rallies outside Jacksonville City Hall calling for City Council to sign a ceasefire resolution.

"We know that reproductive justice cannot happen without justice for Palestine," Mahmoud said, pointing to the rise of miscarriages in Gaza since the conflict. "...We will not allow the fight for reproductive justice to be coopted."

Times-Union staff writer David Bauerlein and USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau reporter John Kennedy contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Kamala Harris blames new Florida abortion restrictions on Donald Trump