Ahead of Dobbs anniversary, Democrats highlight the personal freedoms NC women have lost

Congresswomen Valerie Foushee (left) and Deborah Ross (center) are joined by Gov. Roy Cooper at a Raleigh event to highlight the harms of the Dobbs decision. (Photo: Ahmed Jallow)

Monday marks the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned the decades-long precedent of Roe v. Wade. The Biden campaign is organizing dozens of events across the country surrounding the anniversary as the campaign seeks to make protecting access to abortion care a key issue in the upcoming general election.  

Democrats are hoping that linking former President Donald Trump to the Dobbs decision will galvanize voter turnout this November.  

On Friday in Raleigh, Gov. Roy Cooper, U.S. Representatives Deborah Ross (NC-02)  and Valerie Foushee (NC-04) criticized the former president as the primary architect behind the Dobbs ruling.   

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has taken credit for appointing three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who ultimately ruled in the majority on the Dobbs decision. “We broke Roe v. Wade. And we did something that nobody thought was possible: we gave it back to the states. And the states are working very brilliantly — in some cases conservative, in some cases not conservative — but they’re working and it’s working the way it’s supposed to,”  Trump said at a press conference earlier this year.    

“When it actually happened, Trump rallied around …that he was personally responsible for this decision,” Cooper said during his speech. “He said that it was his honor to kill Roe v Wade.” 

“By overturning Roe v. Wade, Donald Trump unleashed extreme abortion bans across the country that are putting women’s lives at risk and threatening doctors with jail,” Cooper said.   

Fourteen Republican-controlled states have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research and policy organization. In three other states, it’s barred after six weeks, before many know they are pregnant.  

Last month marked the one-year anniversary of the passage of Senate Bill 20,  legislation that banned abortions in North Carolina after 12 weeks. 

“This election is going to be a critical turning point in the fight for reproductive freedom, because Trump and his Republican allies have made it clear they’ll stop at nothing to rip away our ability to make decisions for our own health care, our bodies, and our futures.” said Ross. 

Democrats have a strong reason to make abortion access a key campaign issue for the upcoming election.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Democrats have highlighted the issue of reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy to outperform expectations in off-year and special elections. Repeated polls have shown the most Americans do not favor strict limits on abortion access.

“Donald Trump sees overturning Roe as something to brag about, but we see it for what it really is – an attack on a fundamental human right to make your own decisions about your body,” said Foushee. “The choice this November is simple.”  

The issue of women’s health and reproductive choice will take center stage next Thursday when President Biden and Trump meet in their first televised presidential debate of the 2024 campaign.

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