Two years after the end of Roe v. Wade set off an earthquake in women’s health care and national politics, Vice President Kamala Harris marked the anniversary in Maryland by painting former President Donald Trump as a criminal for his role in changing a half-century of abortion rights and lying about not wanting to go further if he’s elected again.
“If Donald Trump gets the chance, he will sign that ban,” Harris said, referring to the prospect of a Republican-led national abortion ban if Trump defeats her and Democratic President Joe Biden in November.
“How do we know? Well, when Congress tried to pass a national ban in 2017, he endorsed it, and he promised to sign it if it got to his desk. And now he wants us to believe he will not sign the national abortion ban. Look, enough with the gaslighting,” she said as cheers rang through the auditorium on the University of Maryland campus in College Park.
Harris, in a brief 10-minute speech, stood under a massive banner reading “Trust Women” and spoke to a couple hundred supporters for her second major campaign event in Prince George’s County in less than three weeks.
Among those supporters was Kate Cox. The mother of two from Dallas became a symbol of a new era of abortion restrictions in December when she was denied the procedure after being told her unborn baby would not live.
Cox’s unsuccessful challenge to Texas’ law forced her to seek an abortion in New Mexico, an “unspeakably hard” experience when, she said, she had to “kiss my children goodbye and flee my home state to get my abortion.”
She had wanted, desperately, for the pregnancy to be successful, she said. So when she announced, in a slightly shaky voice a few minutes into her speech, that she was pregnant again, the crowd erupted. Cox smiled and wiped away a tear as the applause and cheering boomed.
“My husband and I are expecting our baby in January and I hope that by then, when we welcome our baby into the world, it will be a world led by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” Cox said.
Abortion rights is one of this year’s most potent — if not the most prominent — political issues as Republicans hope to let states decide their own abortion policies and Democrats claim Republicans want to restrict access and pass new nationwide limitations.
In Maryland, it’s become a flashpoint in the U.S. Senate race between Democrat Angela Alsobrooks and Republican Larry Hogan. And it’s on the ballot directly in the form of a referendum that will ask voters whether reproductive rights should be enshrined in the state constitution.
Its prominence in the Senate race in particular was underscored just two days after the May 14 primary, when Hogan said he would support codifying the previous abortion protections under Roe if he’s elected. In a reversal from saying he didn’t believe the constitutional amendment was necessary, he also said he would vote for it.
Hogan had said over his eight years as governor that he would not change abortion rights in Maryland. He vetoed bills that expanded access, like the Abortion Care Access Act of 2022 that allowed more medical professionals to provide abortions. He also withheld $3.5 million in training provided under that law.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said at Monday’s event it was as if “Larry Hogan’s like undergoing some election year conversion.”
“This guy now goes around saying he’s pro-choice. The problem is he has a record that tells us the exact opposite. So now we see Larry Hogan bobbing and weaving, zigging and zagging, flipping and flopping,” Van Hollen said. “And as we watch this, we know one thing for sure. When it comes to this fundamental issue, Marylanders just cannot trust Larry Hogan.”
Van Hollen noted that despite Hogan’s change of pace, the Republican has said he still does not support the Women’s Health Protection Act, federal legislation that would expand access to abortion care.
Alsobrooks, a two-term Prince George’s County executive, said on stage Monday that the GOP’s push to restrict abortion access was part of a slew of “crazy” reproductive health policies like limiting contraception or in vitro fertilization. (Though some Republicans have pushed for such efforts, many Republicans have pushed back on limiting IVF, including in Alabama where a court case first threatened access.)
Alsobrooks did not directly call out Hogan’s latest statements on abortion but linked him to Trump — who, as she noted, recently said he supports the former governor’s campaign — and his push to fill the Supreme Court with conservative justices who overturned Roe.
“This threat is real and, you know what, it always has been,” Alsobrooks said.
Hogan’s campaign did not immediately return a request for comment Monday, though it released a statement from Hogan as the event was happening.
“A woman’s health care decisions are her own. Whether it be the decision to start a family with the help of IVF, or exercise her reproductive rights, nothing and no one — especially partisan politics — should come between a woman and her doctor,” Hogan said in the statement. “In Washington, I’ll protect Maryland women from extreme voices who seek to undermine their autonomy — just as I did for eight years as governor.”
Harris’ speech included another emphatic endorsement of Alsobrooks but primarily focused on Trump. A former prosecutor, Harris described his positions and work on abortion rights as if they were another way the former president should be held accountable not just politically but criminally.
The fall of Roe wasn’t just planned but “premeditated” as Trump appointed three conservative justices. The restrictions passed state-by-state since then weren’t just the work of allies but of “accomplices.” And when he celebrated the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling that overturned Roe in June 2022, it wasn’t just a statement but an “admission” or a “confession.”
“Donald Trump is guilty,” Harris said Monday in the University of Maryland’s Ritchie Coliseum.
The crowd — revved up between speakers by the Bowie State University drumline — chanted “four more years” and waved “Biden-Harris” campaign signs.
Since the fall of Roe, 21 states have banned or restricted abortion earlier than the standard that was set under the law for nearly 50 years, according to The New York Times.
Maryland has been a safe haven for the procedure, with fewer restrictions than any of its surrounding states, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research-focused nonprofit that aims to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights. About 38,600 clinician-provided abortions took place in Maryland in 2023, according to the institute.
Maryland’s slate of Democratic elected officials have pushed to expand abortion access both before and after the fall of Roe. That included opening more pathways for abortion care and legally protecting people who come from other states where abortion is banned to receive care in Maryland. Before the U.S. Supreme Court said earlier this month it would not limit access to a drug used in 98% of medical abortions, Maryland officials moved to stockpile the drug just in case.
