Decoding Democrat Joe Biden’s 2024 Abortion Playbook

US President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally to Restore Roe at Hylton Performing
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
Katherine Hamilton

Killing the unborn is President Joe Biden’s day-one, number-one priority if he is reelected, his staff has said — a strategy likely designed to bludgeon Republicans and appeal to a wide swath of women and young voters accustomed to 50 years of the “right” to abortion invented under the now-defunct Roe v. Wade decision.

The strategy is interesting, given that most overall polling shows the issue of abortion is not Americans’ top priority. But the intense focus is not unexpected, given that one in four Democrats are single-issue voters on abortion and that the majority of independents identify as “pro-choice.” The focus on abortion and painting Republicans as dangerous to women also seems like a ploy to distract from Americans’ top concerns under the Biden administration: the flailing economy and the border, which is essentially open.

In contrast, many Republicans have been eager to shelve the abortion issue going into election season, instead focusing on Biden’s apparent declining mental health, the scandal with his son Hunter, and other various failures. But the GOP should know that in their silence, abortion groups are bankrolling Democrats and corporate media are filling the internet and airwaves with pro-abortion talking points in an effort to keep tight control of the “reproductive rights” narrative going into the election.

Here are five ways self-professed Catholic Joe Biden, 81, is using the issue of abortion as a top strategy ahead of the November presidential election.

“Restore Roe”

Biden, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and their spouses, made his first campaign stop in Virginia last week, harping on the issue of abortion in front of a large banner that read, “Restore Roe.”

President Joe Biden speaks during an event on the campus of George Mason University in Manassas, Va., Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024, to campaign for abortion access. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

In June of 2022, the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision, which overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision inventing a constitutional “right” to abortion and sent the issue back to individual states. Under Roe, a “right” to abortion was established before “viability,” which is generally considered to be between 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. Since Dobbs, some states have passed stricter laws regulating abortion, while others, run by Democrats, have loosened abortion laws and appealed to pro-abortion women in red states.

Following the Dobbs decision, the Biden White House and Democrats have called for the restoration of Roe, which would federalize the issue of abortion again. Democrats have repeatedly tried to pass the radical Women’s Health Protection Act, which they claim would restore Roe. But opponents of the legislation, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), say the bill is an “expansion” of Roe and could lead to abortion throughout pregnancy across the country. Biden has pledged to sign the bill should it ever reach his desk.

In the meantime, the Biden administration has arguably become the most pro-abortion administration in U.S. history, working through executive orders, rule-making and guidance from unelected government bureaucrats, and various legal challenges to install its abortion-on-demand agenda around the country and the world.

Part of Biden’s focus on restoring Roe includes blaming former President Donald Trump — the likely Republican nominee — for installing three Supreme Court justices who ultimately helped overturn Roe. Trump has touted his nominations and the overturn of Roe as one of his major first-term victories.

“Let there be no mistake. The person most responsible for taking away this freedom in America is Donald Trump,” Biden said during his first campaign speech.

“The reason women are being forced to travel across state lines for health care is Donald Trump,” he added. “The reason their fundamental right has been stripped away is Donald Trump.”

“Donald Trump is betting we won’t vote on this issue … He’s betting you’re going to stop caring … that you’ll get distracted, discouraged and stay home,” he said. “Well guess what? I’m betting he’s wrong.”

Threaten a National Abortion Ban

While promising federal action of their own, Democrats and Biden have warned that Republicans would pass a national abortion ban, should a Republican reside at the White House again.

After years of working toward bringing the issue of abortion back to states, some pro-life groups and lawmakers have floated the idea of a national 15-week limit after Dobbs — a limit that would notably allow the majority of abortions to continue but would bar later-term abortions. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) even introduced a bill right before the 2022 midterms.

Some Republican presidential candidates (now ex-candidates) pledged to sign a federal minimum restriction. Trump has not committed to a specific action on abortion if he is reelected. However, he has said the federal government has a “vital role” to play in protecting the unborn and has framed Democrats’ late-term abortion position as “extreme.”

“I want to do what’s right. And we’re looking. And we want to do what’s right for everybody,” he said during a May 2023 CNN town hall. “But now, for the first time, the people that are pro-life have negotiating capability, because you didn’t have it before. They could kill the baby in the ninth month or after the baby was born. Now they won’t be able to do that.”

Steal Conservative Talking Points

The “right to choose” is not a new line from Democrats. But the slogan has been repackaged around the country as “reproductive freedom,” while Democrats cast laws that protect the unborn as “government interference” in personal decisions.

While the Biden administration has no problem coercing Americans to get a vaccine they do not want, surveilling bank accounts, or framing everyday Americans as potential domestic terrorism suspects, the idea of “freedom” and preventing “government interference” is liberally applied to their own political agenda regarding LGBTQIA2S and abortion issues.

Linking abortion — the intentional killing of the unborn — to “freedom” and “government interference,” is a strategy Democrats and pro-abortion activists have also pushed in state abortion amendment fights around the country since the 2022 midterms.

Left-wing coalitions have paid millions of dollars advertising abortion ballot measures in this framing, along with visuals of family, faith, and American flags waving. The organizations behind these measures also typically outspend pro-life groups by double and triple, often backed by dark money groups.

The strategy has been successful so far, with a string of state-level pro-abortion victories following the fall of Roe v. Wade. Activists in at least nine other states are working to put abortion amendments on the ballot this year, adding more abortion-related fuel to what is expected to be a highly contentious election.

The Associated Press

Abortion rights advocates and anti-abortion protesters demonstrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, Dec. 1, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Furthermore, Democrats push the “freedom” narrative while avoiding dialogue around fetal development, points in gestation, or the more gruesome aspects of abortion, which can include the crushing and dismemberment of a baby in the womb.

Create Confusion

Another strategy is lumping elective abortions in with other things like birth control and miscarriages (also medically referred to as spontaneous abortion) under the umbrella term “reproductive health.”

It is a strategy that Democrats have employed since the fall of Roe, some falsely claiming that women will be unable to obtain miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy care or even birth control if abortion is limited.

On the state level, many abortion ballot measures are framed in this way, giving all people (not just females) the right to make their own “reproductive decisions,” “including but not limited to abortion.” Lumping all reproductive-related issues together gives abortion-related campaigning extra weight, especially among women who believe the narrative and are fearful of being denied necessary care and dying of sepsis.

Point to High-Profile Cases of Women Denied Abortions

Since some Republican-led states have passed abortion restrictions, ongoing high-profile cases have emerged of women being denied abortions in alleged life-threatening situations.

Biden has begun to campaign with some of the women involved in these cases, holding them up as an example of how dangerous Republicans’ abortion laws allegedly are.

Specifically, Biden and first lady Jill Biden invited Kate Cox, who left Texas in December to have her disabled baby aborted, to the annual State of the Union address in March.

In Texas, abortion is outlawed except to save the life of the pregnant woman or prevent serious risk to her physical health, and a doctor can be prosecuted for performing the procedure.

Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two, sued the state of Texas with The Center for Reproductive Rights to obtain an abortion after she learned that her unborn baby had Trisomy 18, otherwise known as Edwards syndrome.

Trisomy 18 is a very severe genetic condition that can cause multiple birth defects — 95 percent of babies with the condition do not survive full-term, and ten percent of babies born with the condition typically do not survive past their first year, according to the Cleveland Clinic. There are rare cases of people born with Trisomy 18 living much longer, such as the daughter of former Republican U.S. senator and pro-life advocate Rick Santorum, Isabella, who is now 15 years old. A 2020 scientific journal also describes a 26-year-old woman diagnosed with the condition who has “severe growth and intellectual limitations” but has lived much longer than expected.

The lawsuit alleged that Cox had been to three different emergency rooms within a month due to “severe cramping and unidentifiable fluid leaks.” The lawsuit also alleged that her history of having two prior cesarean surgeries meant that continuing the pregnancy “put[s] her at high risk for severe complications threatening her life and future fertility, including uterine rupture and hysterectomy.”

The complaint argued that it is Dr. Damla Karsan’s (Cox’s healthcare provider) “good faith belief and medical recommendation” that Cox’s circumstances “fall within the medical exception to Texas’s abortion bans and laws.” The lawsuit ultimately asked the court to block the state from enforcing its abortion laws to allow Karsan to abort Cox’s unborn baby.

The Associated Press

President Joe Biden is joined on stage by first lady Jill Biden at an event on the campus of George Mason University in Manassas, VA, Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024, to campaign for abortion rights, a top issue for Democrats in the upcoming presidential election. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Ultimately, the Texas Supreme Court halted a lower court ruling in December of 2023 allowing Cox, who was 20 weeks pregnant at the time, to have her unborn baby aborted. The state’s high court blocked a temporary restraining order from Democrat Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the court to intervene.

As to the Texas Supreme Court’s reasoning, justices wrote in part that Dr. Karsan never actually asserted that Cox had a “life-threatening physical condition” or that “in Dr. Karsan’s reasonable medical judgment, an abortion is necessary because Ms. Cox has the type of condition the exception requires.”

“No one disputes that Ms. Cox’s pregnancy has been extremely complicated. Any parents would be devastated to learn of their unborn child’s trisomy 18 diagnosis,” the justices wrote.

“Some difficulties in pregnancy, however, even serious ones, do not pose the heightened risks to the mother the exception encompasses,” they continued. “The exception requires a doctor to decide whether Ms. Cox’s difficulties pose such risks. Dr. Karsan asked a court to pre-authorize the abortion yet she could not, or at least did not, attest to the court that Ms. Cox’s condition poses the risks the exception requires.”

The Associated Press

Demonstrators march and gather near the Texas state Capitol in Austin following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

Cox ended up leaving Texas to have her baby aborted at around 21 weeks of pregnancy. Abortions at that stage of pregnancy typically are done with a dilation and evacuation (D & E) procedure, which can involve “crushing, dismemberment and removal of a fetal body from a woman’s uterus, mere weeks before, or even after, the fetus reaches a developmental age of potential viability outside the mother,” according to the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute.

Before inviting Cox to the State of the Union, Biden was introduced by Amanda Zurawski at his first abortion-themed campaign rally in Virginia. Zurawski was one of five women who sued Texas last year for not being able to obtain an abortion while facing pregnancy complications.

The Biden-Harris reelection campaign also recently released an advertisement featuring Dr. Austin Dennard, an OB-GYN in Texas and mother of three who was denied an abortion in Texas. Dennard narrated the ad and placed the blame for her situation on Trump.

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.

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