Sawt Falasteen - Florida abortion ban starts in heat of US election battle

The ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy has turned Republican-led Florida into a crucial battleground for a divisive topic that President Joe Biden and his Democratic Party hope to capitalize on in November.

Florida is one of several states that have introduced bans since a conservative US Supreme Court -- featuring three justices appointed by Trump while he was president -- revoked the nationwide right to abortion in 2022.

As the ban comes into effect, Harris will travel to Jacksonville in Florida for a campaign event "focused on the stakes of the election for reproductive freedom across the country."

She will "discuss the harms inflicted by state abortion bans and continue to make the case that 'Donald Trump did this,'" Biden's reelection campaign said.

Harris, the first female, black and South Asian vice president in US history, has become the campaign's leading voice on abortion rights and led a nationwide tour on the issue.

Abortion has become one of the central issues of the election, with Democrats seeing it as a potential vote winner as they seek to prevent Republican Trump returning to the White House.

Biden himself visited Florida on April 23, telling a crowd in the city of Tampa that he would hold his Republican election rival personally accountable for restricting reproductive rights.

Florida's abortion ban has left women and clinics across the southern United States scrambling before the deadline takes effect.

It was one of the few states in the region where the time limit for abortion was still quite high, leading many women to travel there to terminate their pregnancies.

- 'Punishing women' -

Nine states in the South have banned abortion, with Florida joining Georgia and South Carolina with a six-week ban.

Arizona in the southwest recently reinstated an 1864 law banning the procedure, sparking howls of outrage.

The Florida ban is the brainchild of Republican governor and former presidential contender Ron DeSantis, who signed into law in April 2023 a bill to lower the limit from 15 weeks to six weeks.

The Sunshine State's supreme court dismissed a final legal challenge by pro-abortion groups in April, paving the way for the ban to take effect on Wednesday.

But Florida voters will have a chance to reverse the six-week limit in a referendum that will coincide with November's presidential election.

The issue plays deeply into the culture wars in an increasingly polarized US electorate.

Trump appeals to his conservative base by frequently bragging about his Supreme Court nominees being key to overturning the 1973 Roe v Wade decision, which had legalized abortion nationwide half a century ago.

But amid signs it may hurt him in the polls, the twice-impeached former president has recently fudged on the issue, saying it is up to states to decide on bans.

That did not stop Democrats on Tuesday pouncing on his latest remarks on the subject in an interview with Time magazine, in which he refused to rule out a national abortion ban.

They also criticized him for saying states might monitor women's pregnancies to see if they have had abortions in defiance of a ban.

The Biden campaign said Trump "endorsed punishing women for getting abortions and allowing states to monitor their bodies."

K.Hassan--SF-PST