House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said on Tuesday that in light of the recent Florida Supreme Court Decision, the Sunshine State has become the principal battleground for the fight over abortion rights.
"Florida is now ground zero in the fight to protect a woman's freedom to make her own reproductive health care decisions," Jeffries said during a House Democratic leadership meeting held Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
On Monday, the court upheld the state's 15-week abortion ban but also left open the possibility of the procedure being protected by a ballot measure to be voted on in November.
"An extreme group of individuals in this state, led by the current governor, are prepared by almost any means to jam their radical right-wing ideology down the throats of the people of this state as part of an effort to try to impose a nationwide abortion ban," Jeffries continued. "But we can stop them. We must stop them, and we will stop them together."
President Joe Biden released a statement on the Florida decision saying, "The Court not only upheld Florida's current ban on women being able to make their own reproductive choices, it will likely trigger Governor [Ron] DeSantis' even more extreme law that would prevent women from accessing care before many even know they are pregnant," he said. "It is outrageous."
Jeffries' comments come the same day the Biden campaign released a new commercial targeting former President Donald Trump and linking him to the abortion debate.
"In 2016, Donald Trump ran to overturn Roe v. Wade. Now in 2024, he's running to pass a national ban on a woman's right to choose," Biden says in the ad.