ACLU announces roadmap to protect and expand US abortion and birth control access under a Harris Administration News
Janni Rye, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
ACLU announces roadmap to protect and expand US abortion and birth control access under a Harris Administration

The American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) released a roadmap on Tuesday outlining Democratic nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign commitments regarding reproductive freedom and how the ACLU will ensure their delivery. The roadmap is part of the organization’s memo series exploring potential policies concerning a range of civil liberty issues that are likely from either a Trump or Harris administration.

Harris’s campaign has indicated strong support for reproductive rights and promised to protect and expand abortion rights if elected. “Every person of whatever gender should understand that, if such a fundamental freedom such as the right to make decisions about your own body can be taken, be aware of what other freedoms may be at stake,” said Harris in an interview with MSNBC. In its roadmap, the ACLU anticipates a Harris administration to enact a federal right to abortion.

If such a right is enacted, the ACLU promises to challenge barriers to abortion care created after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the case that established a constitutional right to abortion in 1973. The organization also seeks to hold any potential Harris administration to its promises while putting public pressure on Congress in support of efforts to restore abortion rights. It further promises to make efforts to eliminate the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) “medically unwarranted restrictions” on mifepristone and other medications used in abortions.

Since Roe was overturned, access to abortion in the US has been under threat. So far, 14 states have enacted complete bans on abortion, while the ACLU notes that others have criminalized abortions after the “earliest weeks of pregnancy.” These restrictions have limited the accessibility of reproductive care for millions of Americans in their home states, with 171,000 people having been forced to travel out of state to receive services in 2023.

The ACLU considers reproductive freedom to be one of the “most important constitutional liberties” and has listed it among its bill of rights. The organization considers banning abortion to be “criminal” and unequally affects poor women who cannot secure proper care.

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