While Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams is a rising star nationally for her strong 2018 gubernatorial campaign, she proclaimed her opposition to a series of legislative efforts in Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country to severely limit (and in some cases prohibit) women’s access to an abortion.
“Anti-abortion is not the will of the people,” Abrams told a crowd at conference Wednesday hosted by the progressive think thank Center for American Progress. “Less than 25% across the country believe that we should overturn Roe v. Wade, and yet in Kentucky and Ohio and Indiana and Missouri and Mississippi and Georgia and Alabama we see these bans moving forward, and it is not a reflection of the will of the people.”
Abrams sits on the board of directors for the think tank.
In addition, Abrams said Georgia is “leading the nation” in pushing “aggressive and deeply unfortunate forced pregnancy bans. Including Georgia, state legislatures in Missouri, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Ohio have recently passed so-called “heartbeat” bills, which inherently ban abortion from taking place after six to eight weeks of pregnancy.
In Alabama, Republican lawmakers went even further, passing an outright ban on abortion which the state’s Republican governor signed into law.
During Wednesday’s conference, Abrams loosely referred to her potential presidential bid, saying “there is a solution” to the problem she identified as elected leaders not listening to science or to the “voices of the people.”
“It is not, however, having everyone in America run for president,” she said, adding, “That is also not an announcement.”
Abrams has previously indicated she’s likely to make an announcement about a potential White House bid later in the year, during the fall.
