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When Dr. Austin Dennard, an OB-GYN in Dallas, realized that her 11-week-old fetus had a deadly medical situation in July 2022, she instantly understood the medical implications.
What she didn’t know was that she would quickly land in the course of a lawsuit against the state of Texas — and within the midst of the presidential campaign.
Dennard is starring in a brand new political advert for President Biden’s re-election marketing campaign, by which she describes her prognosis and having to depart Texas and its restrictive abortion regulation to get an abortion.
Democrats like Biden are more and more having girls describe, in stark, emotional element, the non-public impression of the abortion bans championed by their Republican opponents. In 2023, Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat searching for re-election in Kentucky, ran an advert that includes a girl who stated she was raped as youngster by her stepfather, criticizing a state abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest.
Abortion rights have emerged as one of many Democrats’ strongest arguments with voters. Marketing campaign aides in Kentucky said the Beshear ad helped sway some impartial and conservative voters. The problem led to victories within the 2022 midterms and in different races in 2023. Now, the problem is a centerpiece of Biden’s re-election bid, a part of an argument that abortion rights are certainly one of many private freedoms that can be taken away if Donald Trump is as soon as once more elected president.
Dennard supported Biden and customarily votes for Democratic candidates, she stated, however by no means thought-about herself notably political.
“Aside from being an lively voter, I don’t comply with politics intently,” she stated. “I’m a mother in Texas, driving my S.U.V. to Costco, selecting up meals and attempting to get everybody’s sneakers on in time for church on Sunday. There’s nothing particular about me.”
That began to alter on June 24, 2022, when the Supreme Court voted to overrule Roe v. Wade. That night time, Ms. Dennard sat on her couch along with her husband, additionally an OB-GYN, and made a plan. If she had an issue along with her being pregnant, they’d head to the East Coast to search out care. And they might attempt to facilitate the identical assist for sufferers who needed to terminate their pregnancies.
Two weeks later, she was identified with an anencephalic being pregnant, a deadly defect the place a child is born with out components of the mind and cranium. For the mom, it could possibly result in bleeding, preterm labor and different issues that would threaten future fertility — plus the emotional trauma of carrying a toddler nearly sure to die inside hours of delivery.
Texas’s abortion ban had an exception for life-threatening medical emergencies. However Dennard stated she didn’t hassle attempting to ask for one. The dangers to her life weren’t acute. “I knew I wasn’t going to get one. I wasn’t sick sufficient,” she stated.
She was lucky to have the ability to get an abortion in any respect, she stated, a mirrored image of her connections as a physician and talent to spend hundreds of {dollars} on journey for the process.
“That privilege is what was enabled me to have the ability to get the entry to care that I wanted,” she stated. “But it surely doesn’t protect you. The cruelty and the phobia and the gaslighting — that penetrates each degree of privilege. That’s the good equalizer.”
When Dennard returned dwelling, she was in “a really darkish place,” mourning her private loss and struggling to offer look after her sufferers, a few of whom confronted their very own tough decisions.
“It’s excruciating to have these conversations. I’ve extra braveness now speaking about choices for care and journey,” she stated. “But it surely’s nonetheless arduous to speak about since you by no means know if somebody goes to show you in for serving to a person get care.”
Dennard and her husband have mentioned whether or not they need to depart the state to observe medication someplace that abortion stays authorized. For now, they’re staying put. However she worries in regards to the prospect of a nationwide abortion ban or restrictions on contraception.
“I’m a sixth-generation Texan. My whole household is in Texas. My husband’s from Kansas. Neither of us skilled in states the place we had been capable of give individuals abortions. But when contraception is taken away, we’ll have to maneuver,” she stated.
She grew to become concerned with the lawsuit after a affected person grew to become a plaintiff. As she talked about her affected person’s case to the attorneys on the Heart for Reproductive Rights, an abortion rights authorized group, she talked about her personal abortion. In July, then 34 weeks pregnant along with her third youngster, she provided emotional testimony in courtroom about her 2022 prognosis and option to journey out of state.
“The very fact of the matter is that everybody clearly wants a alternative and a few sufferers will select to proceed their pregnancies and that’s OK. I’m right here to information them by that, if that’s what they need to select,” she stated. “However the issue is the selection has been taken away. Utterly taken away.”
The case — and the advert — have reworked her loss and grief into motion.
“It’s helped me develop into a greater physician and hopefully a greater mom. I had such an outpouring of affection and assist,” she stated. “I don’t really feel so alone anymore.”
Joe Biden’s plan for Taylor Swift
There’s a clean house on President Biden’s listing of 2024 endorsements.
Biden is attempting to pump energy into his re-election bid, kicking off what’s more likely to be a historically long slog to November between two unpopular nominees. Aides are drafting want lists of potential surrogates, together with elected officers and social media influencers — and the endorsement of their wildest goals.
Taylor Swift, the pop sensation and N.F.L. enthusiast, can spur thousands and thousands of supporters with an Instagram put up or a mid-concert apart. She endorsed Biden in 2020 and, final yr, a single Instagram put up of hers led to 35,000 new voter registrations.
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a prime Biden surrogate, all however begged Swift to develop into extra concerned in Biden’s marketing campaign when he spoke to reporters after a Republican main debate in September.
“Taylor Swift stands tall and distinctive,” he stated. “What she was capable of accomplish simply in getting younger individuals activated to contemplate that they’ve a voice and that they need to have a alternative within the subsequent election, I feel, is profoundly highly effective.”
The chatter round Swift reached such depth that the Biden workforce lately urged candidates in a job posting for a social media place to not describe their Taylor Swift technique — the marketing campaign had sufficient recommendations already. One concept that has been tossed round, a bit in jest: sending the president to a cease on Swift’s Eras Tour.
A few of Biden’s Republican foils are additionally obsessive about a attainable Swift endorsement. They know all too properly her means to mobilize younger voters, however to them, she’s an antihero.
“I’m wondering who’s going to win the Tremendous Bowl subsequent month,” the previous presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wrote on X this morning, referring to Swift and her boyfriend, the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs star Travis Kelce. “And I’m wondering if there’s a serious presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall.”
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