Harris campaign launches ‘reproductive freedom’ tour in Trump’s Palm Beach County backyard

Seeking to mobilize voters worried about threats to abortion rights and in vitro fertilization, Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign used former President Donald Trump’s political backyard Tuesday to launch a nationwide “reproductive freedom” bus tour.

The effort aims to drive home Trump’s opposition to abortion rights, and remind voters that he appointed the Supreme Court justices who provided the majority to overturn Roe v. Wade, which has resulted in abortion restrictions or outright bans throughout the county.

If Trump is elected to a second term, a range of Harris surrogates warned even more abortion restrictions would come — including, they said, a nationwide ban on abortion.

The event attracted 500 people, mostly women, to the Boynton Beach kickoff on a weekday morning. The speeches, sign waving, chanting and cheering produced soundbites and images aimed at a much broader audience, on TV news shows and social media posts. The rally room, in a banquet hall, had a section with a backdrop of white roses and an illuminated “trust women” sign for people to take selfies they could post online.

The location near the Mar-a-Lago Club, where Trump lives, was no accident.

Several speakers noted the kickoff location of the nationwide, 50-stop tour.

“It is not lost on us that we are just 10 miles from Mar-a-Lago, home of one Donald J. Trump. He calls it the Winter White House. I call it his retirement home,” said U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the state where vice presidential nominee Tim Walz is governor.

Klobuchar, along with several Florida political leaders who spoke, noted that Trump has stated he was proudly responsible for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

“He is the one who got us into this mess,” Klobuchar said, adding that American women, “and the men who stand with them,” remember who is “responsible for these attacks on their basic rights.”

And, she said, “So let’s be clear. A second Donald Trump term would be so much worse” than the first.

Reproductive freedom, encompassing abortion rights and IVF, is seen by Democrats as a central issue that could galvanize voters this year.

For the Harris campaign, the timing of the kickoff was fortuitous. It came just days after Trump himself reinjected the issue into the forefront of the presidential campaign with his announcement that, as a Florida resident, he would vote against the state referendum that would enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution. That came shortly after comments in an interview that he thought Florida’s abortion regulations are too restrictive.

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“You can’t trust a damn word out of that liar’s mouth, no matter what he says,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee.

“Florida is ground zero for his extreme anti-reproductive freedom agenda. And he wants to keep it that way, but let’s be clear. We know you can’t trust anything that comes out of his mouth. What we can be sure of is if Donald Trump is reelected, God forbid, he will go further. He’ll ban abortion nationwide and drag us back to an era of back-alley abortion care, a time when women bled out at home or alone in hotel rooms,” Wasserman Schultz said.

She led the crowd in chanting, “We’re not going back.”

Speaker after speaker emphasized Trump’s role in the overturning of Roe, and statements that he was proud of the outcome. U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel said the result of overturning Roe is that 25 million women of reproductive age are living in states that have banned or severely restricted abortions.

“We have a choice between a vice president, a champion in the fight for reproductive freedom, and Donald Trump who’d ban abortion nationwide if elected,” Frankel said.

Frankel, whose district hosted the kickoff and includes Mar-a-Lago, welcomed attendees to Palm Beach County, “where Donald Trump calls home, but don’t hold it against us, because this crowd is ready to give Kamala Harris a promotion.”

Anya Cook of Coral Springs described her 2022 pregnancy, during which she developed serious complications at 16 weeks, and was told by a doctor that “there was no chance” her baby girl would survive. “Because of the abortion ban in my state, doctors could not induce labor, leaving me at far greater risk of infection and hemorrhage,” she said. “I was sent home and told to come back if my symptoms worsened.”

The next day, she had a miscarriage in the bathroom of a hair salon. She lost half her blood and almost died, she said.

“As my husband prayed for my life in the hospital, Donald Trump sat down the road at Mar-a-Lago bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade,” she said, calling him “responsible for what I and so many other women across the country have gone through.”

Cook had a baby girl in June, but said she’s engaging politically to prevent other women from experiencing what she did.

Ana Navarro, the Miami-based television personality, political commentator and never-Trump Republican, said she does not have children, describing her personal story, of having ectopic pregnancy, which is a pregnancy that happens outside of your uterus. Decades earlier, she said, her mother nearly died from lack of access to care during an ectopic pregnancy in a small town in Nicaragua.

“I’m not sure today in Florida, I could get the treatment I desperately needed,” she said. “I am here to fight so that other women who face reproductive emergencies in Florida and across the United States can get the treatment they need without having to flee their state, flee their country, or almost die in order to get treatment.”

The messaging wasn’t completely in sync. Some speakers described Trump as a firm abortion opponent. Others said he flip flopped so much he couldn’t be trusted.

“Does Donald Trump think we’re stupid? Does he think we don’t remember. You don’t get to create a problem and then pretend you have a solution,” she said.

Beth Harrelson of Lake Worth Beach said she attended to “fight for our rights, for reproductive freedoms. We’re going to take back our rights. The issue, she said, “is life changing, not only for women and girls, but everybody.”

Harrelson said Harris becoming the Democratic nominee has changed the tenor of the campaign. “With Vice President Harris coming on, it has given everybody a jolt of energy they needed.”

Lisa Garner of Boynton Beach said she is especially concerned about IVF, which her daughter needs, and what happens if something goes wrong and a woman with a high-risk pregnancy like her daughter has a miscarriage. She wonders if she’d receive the care she needs.

Attendee Lee Howell of Fort Lauderdale said reproductive rights will motivate many voters, but not all. She said her brother and sister-in-law are strongly opposed to abortion rights. “I don’t engage” with them on politics, she said.

Vickie Grimes of Jupiter said she isn’t sure how much the issue would mobilize voters, at least in Florida, which she views as not a progressive state. She said attended the rally to “feel part of the excitement, supporting women, supporting Kamala and to hang out with like minded folks.”

Several Trump supporters stood near the tour stop, sometimes yelling at people who arrived for the Harris event and also playing an audio recording of Trump speaking.

“President Trump has been consistent and clear: the issue of abortion should be decided by the people in their respective states, not by the federal government in DC. In his second term, President Trump will support universal access to IVF for growing families and policies that create a safer, more prosperous nation for America’s children,” campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said via email.

Former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Democratic nominee challenging U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, told attendees that if her opponent and Trump win they would attempt to ban abortion nationwide. “Freedom is on the ballot in November. And if we want to stop these extreme bans, we have to stop the extreme politicians who are pushing them.”

The state’s voters will do that, she predicted. “Florida is in play, baby,” Mucarsel-Powell said.

Many political analysts don’t think Florida is a competitive state, with Trump most likely to win, something the Democratic leaders disputed on Tuesday.

The reproductive rights tour clearly had a broader, national audience, with speakers warning that the kinds of restrictions that have been enacted in Florida would occur nationwide if Trump returns as president.

Wasserman Schultz said she expects the issue to motivate voters in her home state. She called for voters to reject U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., to support the referendum that would enshrine abortion rights in the Florida Constitution, and to vote against retaining Renatha Francis and Meredith Sasso, the two state Supreme Court justices who attempted to block the referendum from the ballot. Votes in November will decide if Francis and Sasso are retained as justices.

And, she insisted, Florida could end up in the Harris column.

“It’s going to be close, my friends, so let’s not kid ourselves. The final margins could be razor thin,” she said. “Don’t sleep on Florida.”

Later, speaking to reporters, she described the chances in the state somewhat differently. “We have a chance to be in play,” she said.

Leavitt, the Trump campaign spokeswoman, rejected that notion. “Considering gas prices are 50% higher than when she took office, Kamala Harris is wasting MONEY and time spewing lies about President Trump in Florida because Florida is TRUMP Country. Republican policies are what turned Florida red, and why it will continue to be a place Americans flock to for freedom. That’s why Floridians will overwhelmingly vote for President Trump on November 5th.”

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.