Why it matters Kamala Harris isn’t afraid to say the word "abortion"

Vice President Kamala Harris isn’t afraid to talk about and say the word “abortion.” 

Unlike President Joe Biden, whose lack of use of the word has spurred news articles about the topic and websites tracking it, Harris has been notably more frank in her discourse about abortion (a detail that anti-abortion advocates have recently called out). The Vice President’s candid use of the word abortion and how she articulates what’s at stake is a welcome change, pro-abortion advocates say. It could energize voters who have felt hopeless in a post-Roe world. 

“Kamala Harris is leading the most unapologetic campaign on abortion rights in history, and she's consistently been a leader in ensuring that abortion remains a central issue in this campaign,” Emily Martin, the chief program officer of National Women's Law Center Action Fund, told Salon. “And that's not only a winning strategy we've seen since the Dobbs decision, but it's also essential to destigmatizing this essential care.”

There have been several public efforts over the years to destigmatize abortion, including the Shout Your Abortion and the Abortion Out Loud campaigns. Yet there are many ways in which abortion stigma continues to persist in our culture. As outlined by the Guttmacher Institute, many women follow the “implicit rule of secrecy” and are expected to stay quiet about their abortions. A study in 2010 found that 58 percent of women who had abortions felt they needed to keep it a secret from friends and family. There also seems to be a perception in society that there are “good abortions” that are more widely accepted in our culture, like terminating for medical reasons, or “bad abortions.” Shame and stigma trickle down and infiltrate politics though.

“Shame is the enemy of power building and so speaking clearly about what's at stake makes it much more possible to organize and win around this issue,” Martin said. “And it's also important for the real world impact of ensuring that more people have access to abortion care – talking about abortion care, making clear how this is essential health care, that's part of ensuring that people have access to care.”

Harris has been the leading voice of the Biden Administration on abortion access, especially since the Supreme Court Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Last spring, the vice president became the first to visit an abortion provider at a Planned Parenthood clinic. While in the clinic, she met with about two dozen healthcare workers and applauded them for their work.

“I’m here at this health care clinic to uplift the work that is happening in Minnesota as an example of what true leadership looks like,” Harris said at the time. “In this environment, these attacks against an individual’s right to make decisions about their own body are outrageous, and in many instances just plain old immoral.”

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In the clinic lobby, Harris emphasized that the U.S. needs to be a nation that “trusts women.” When Florida’s six-week abortion ban went into effect, Harris quickly condemned it, saying, “Starting this morning, women in Florida became subject to an abortion ban so extreme it applies before many women even know they're pregnant, which by the way, tells us the extremists who wrote this ban either don't know how a woman's body works or they simply don't care."

Josie Urbina, an OBGYN and complex family planning specialist at the University of California-San Francisco, told Salon it’s “refreshing” to not only have a presidential candidate who isn’t afraid to say the word “abortion,” but one who can speak so accurately about in a time when so much misinformation surrounds it.

“Having VP Harris say abortion so nonchalantly is exactly what people in this country needed, specifically, half the population that is capable of pregnancy,” Urbina said. “This helps normalize abortion within communities, and although abortion is a very safe and normal thing to do, minoritized communities still deal with abortion being taboo in our culture.”

Urbina added that Harris being a Black and Southeast Asian woman, being able to speak and discuss abortion “speaks volumes.”

“It lets those communities know that abortion is common and it's acceptable,” Urbina said. “That what they're doing is OK, especially for young people.” 

According to a Pew Research Center poll published in May 2024, 63 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Using euphemisms like “reproductive rights” to avoid saying abortion, advocates say, can do more harm than good. 

“One reason folks say ‘reproductive rights’ is because there are a range of rights that are very much under attack right now, but it also can be a euphemism to avoid talking about abortion,” Martin said. “And that suggests that there's something to be ashamed of when people seek abortions.”

As WeTestify found in their campaign, “Did Biden Say Abortion Yet?” the Biden Administration first used the word “abortion” in a press statement 224 days into Biden’s presidency in response to Texas’ six-week ban going into effect. While Biden vowed to restore Roe v. Wade if re-elected, it’s been difficult for him to be removed from past actions and statements on abortion as a practicing Catholic. He has written that despite his religious beliefs, he wouldn’t “impose” them on other people, and he did take some executive action to protect access to reproductive health care.

“I think Joe Biden has generally been right on policy, but I think he has personal discomfort around the issue, which made it hard for him to make the case in ways that were clear to people and inspired people,” Martin said. “I think on the flip side, Kamala Harris is good at naming the centrality of abortion rights to gender equality, she's really good at identifying the connections between the attacks on abortion access to the range of attacks on women, on freedom and autonomy.” 

When Harris debates Trump, Martin said, she believes Harris will be able “to make the stakes clear and mobilize voters.”

Elizabeth Schoetz, chief campaigns and advocacy officer of Reproductive Freedom for All agreed. 

“Vice President Harris has been there from the beginning on abortion, destigmatizing talking about it and making it a front-and-center issue in this campaign,” Schoetz said in a statement to Salon. “There’s no doubt her candidacy has supercharged the reproductive freedom movement to defeat Donald Trump and J.D. Vance with abortion as a top motivating issue for voters.”