US Vice President Kamala Harris said Donald Trump would gut abortion rights nationwide
US Vice President Kamala Harris said Donald Trump would gut abortion rights nationwide. AFP

Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to visit Florida as the state's six-week abortion ban has become effective starting May 1 and is expected to tear into the remarks made by former President Donald Trump on reproductive rights.

Quoting a Biden campaign official, The Hill reported that Harris will speak in Jacksonville terming Florida's new law as one of the "Trump abortion bans" that have been implemented since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade case in June 2022.

In a recent interview to Time magazine, Trump had stated that the states should have the right to monitor women's pregnancies and whether to prosecute women for violation of abortion ban. He added that the federal government should have no role in states prosecuting women if they went against abortion ban.

According to excerpts from her remarks, Harris is expected to comment that "This ban applies to many women before they even know they are pregnant – which tells us the extremists who wrote this ban don't even know how a woman's body works. Or they just don't care."

"Florida, the contrast could not be clearer: under Donald Trump, it would be fair game for women to be monitored and punished by the government," Harris will say in her speech. "Joe Biden and I have a different view: we believe no politician should ever come between a woman and a doctor."

Harris' visit comes one week after President Biden traveled to Tampa, FL, where he opposed the state's ban on abortion. He slammed Trump and held him accountable for the abortion ban.

Florida Supreme Court upheld the ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, which comes into effect from May 1. The law gives exception in the case of rape and incest or saving a woman's life. However, a separate ruling by the Supreme Court has allowed a proposed constitutional amendment to abortion access if voters pass it, in November.

The new legal ban on abortion has led to raging debates on the topic with supporters hailing it as protecting life, while some health workers worried that women in Florida and south may be denied access to health care.

Those opposing the ban echoed this, saying that most women don't realize they are pregnant at six weeks, and that their abortion access is limited to the time frame when they don't know about their pregnancy.

The abortion issue has raised the hope of Democrats in Trump's home state, while the former President supported the view that the states should decide through legislation or ballot referendums.