When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris held their first joint campaign event of 2024 last month in northern Virginia, they left no doubt that codifying abortion rights would be central to the president’s reelection bid. With the rally timed to honor what would have been the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Biden stood under a large “Restore Roe” sign and beside supporters holding smaller posters to “Defend Choice.”
“We need the protections of Roe v. Wade in every state. And we can do it. You can do it,” Biden stressed at the event. “Give me a Democratic House of Representatives and give me a bigger — a bigger Democratic Senate, and we will pass a new law restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade, and I will sign it immediately.”
In subsequent campaign blasts, the Biden-Harris team reiterated the Roe message. “A vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is a vote to restore Roe,” said Julie Chávez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager. “It’s simple,” the president tweeted to his nearly 34 million followers, under a graphic calling to “Restore the Protections of Roe v. Wade Once and For All.”
After the 2022 and 2023 election cycles, it may not be surprising that Biden is running on an abortion rights platform. What’s new, though, is that prominent abortion rights groups are biting their tongues about Roe and “pro-choice” messaging they disdain and have been trying to steer politicians away from.
In the weeks and months following the June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision, it was more common to hear influential leaders within the abortion rights movement…
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