President Joe Biden went on the attack against Donald Trump while campaigning in Tampa, Florida, on Tuesday, blaming the former president for the state's six-week abortion ban set to begin next week.
"Next week, one of the nation's most extreme anti-abortion laws takes effect here in Florida," Biden told supporters at Hillsborough Community College, according to a report from Roll Call. "It's criminalizing reproductive health care before women even know whether they're pregnant. I mean, this is bizarre."
The Florida Supreme Court ruled last month that a six-week ban on abortion, which was signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, could take effect May 1. It sets the state up to have one of the most restrictive laws on abortion following the U.S. Supreme Court upending Roe v. Wade in June 2022, and gives Biden a campaign platform in the Republican-leaning state.
"Let's be real clear. There's one person responsible for this nightmare," Biden said. "And he's acknowledged and he brags about it. Donald Trump."
The issue of abortion has become a winning talking point for Democrats. Voters have chosen to enshrine protections for women's rights into their state constitutions every time abortion has been placed on the ballot, including in Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio, states where Trump beat Biden in 2020.
Florida voters will get the chance to cast a ballot on abortion rights in the fall. If the measure passes, it will allow the procedure to remain available until a fetus can generally survive outside of the uterus, a stage reached at around 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Trump recently attempted to step back his previous statements on abortion, saying that overturning Roe was about "states' rights" and not an anti-abortion stance. The former president has previously taken credit for appointing conservative justices to the Supreme Court that led to getting Roe overturned, and at one point referred to himself as the most "pro-life president ever."
Trump has also rejected a push from some members of the GOP to enact a 15-week federal abortion ban if reelected to office. Polling shows that a majority of Americans agree that abortion restrictions should be decided by the states rather than the federal government, but Trump's policy has sparked backlash from some prominent Republicans, including South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Trump's ex-running mate, former Vice President Mike Pence.
In a series of posts to Truth Social this month, Trump accused Graham of "doing a great disservice to the Republican Party" by calling for the federal government to set a limit on abortion access, adding, "Radical Left Democrats ... love this issue, and they want to keep it going for as long as Republicans will allow them to do so."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign via email for comment Tuesday evening.
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Kaitlin Lewis is a Newsweek reporter on the Night Team based in Boston, Massachusetts. Her focus is reporting on national ... Read more
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