A new campaign ad from President Joe Biden highlights the devastating effects of Texas’s draconian abortion ban, tying the overturn of Roe v. Wade directly to GOP candidate for president Donald Trump.
The ad features couple Amanda and Josh Zurawski, who begin the commercial by going through a box of keepsakes meant for their child, Willow, whom Amanda lost in a miscarriage in 2022 — shortly after the conservative Supreme Court upended Roe and lawmakers enacted restrictive abortion laws in Texas.
After her miscarriage, Amanda was sent home by doctors who said they couldn’t legally perform a medically necessary abortion.
“Because Donald Trump killed Roe v. Wade, Amanda was denied standard medical care to prevent infection, an abortion,” text in the ad, interspersed between footage of the Zurawskis recounting their ordeal, reads on the screen. “Doctors were forced to send her home.”
In the next scene, Amanda is shown crying. The text appears again, this time noting that Amanda ended up in the ICU with sepsis.
“She almost died twice,” the text goes on to say. “The infection caused so much damage, Amanda may never get pregnant again.”
Amanda is then seen crying, collapsing in Josh’s arms. A final round of text is shown on the screen.
“Trump did this,” the ad concludes.
The commercial is part of a $30 million purchase from the Biden campaign, which will air on local broadcast and cable television stations in battleground states across the U.S., sometimes during popular television shows.
The ad was released just hours after Trump issued a formal statement seeking to clarify his views on abortion. On Monday, Trump claimed in a video message on his social media platform, Truth Social, that he wouldn’t support a national abortion ban and that regulating the procedure was best left to the states.
Critics lampooned that claim, noting that Trump had endorsed a 15-week abortion ban a few weeks ago during a radio interview, and that his past comments — including campaigning in 2016 on the idea that individuals should be punished for obtaining an abortion — contradict his statements now.
“Trump installed the three justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, ergo this is a lie,” political commentator Molly Jong-Fast said on X, referencing the ex-president’s new stance on the issue.
According to a Fox News poll published late last month, two in five voters say abortion will be an important issue to them in the presidential election. Fifty-nine percent of voters said that abortion should be legal in “most” cases or “always,” while 32 percent said it should only be legal in certain circumstances, and just 7 percent said it should never be legal.
A Data for Progress poll in February also suggested that Biden should highlight his support for abortion rights— and Trump’s ever-changing views on abortion — if he wants to get ahead this presidential election season. Sixty-three percent of Americans, according to that poll, also believe that Republicans are likely to pass a nationwide abortion ban if they win control of Congress.
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