Abortion is a matter of ‘freedom’ for Biden and Democrats

WASHINGTON — The way President Joe Biden sees it, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade was not just about whether a woman has a right to obtain an abortion.

“It’s about freedom,” Biden said at a private fundraiser in New York this past week.

Vice President Kamala Harris takes an even bolder approach when she talks about abortion. “Extremist, so-called leaders trumpet the rhetoric of freedom while they take away freedoms,” she told voters in Illinois this month.

That deliberate echo of “freedom” from Biden, Harris and other top White House officials shows how Democrats — eager to keep abortion front of mind heading into the November elections — at the highest ranks are increasingly co-opting traditionally conservative rhetoric in a blunt appeal to a broad swath of the electorate.

White House aides think the message is a particularly potent one, especially when combined with repeated reminders about the GOP’s proposals on abortion, which often do not include exceptions for rape or the mother’s health that are popular with voters. The freedom message also resonates, officials say, as access to contraception and abortion medication is under threat in Republican-controlled states.

Now more than ever, Democrats are leaning into messaging strategy from pro-abortion rights groups, which have long advised candidates and elected officials to talk about reproductive rights as if they were part of the tea party — the conservative movement that made its mark in 2010 campaigning against government overreach. It’s a playbook that succeeded in August, when opponents of a Kansas initiative that would have allowed for further restrictions on abortion successfully hammered home an anti-government-mandate message to voters and on the airwaves.

Organizations supportive of abortion rights say research shows that framing the issue as a matter of freedom is by far the most effective message for voters across all political persuasions. For instance, when participants in focus groups convened by NARAL Pro-Choice America were shown articles about abortion restrictions, they would often become angry, insisting that the freedom to make personal decisions without political interference was a core American value.

The message, strategists say, can work even on GOP voters. In a July Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, 32% of Republicans said after the Supreme Court’s decision in…