Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff (right) speaks with Maine Sen. Stacey Brenner (D-Cumberland) as part of his first stop for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign in Portland on July 24. (Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
PORTLAND, Maine — At his first official campaign stop for Kamala Harris’ presidential bid, second gentleman Douglas Emhoff visited Maine’s most populated city Wednesday to participate in a discussion about the threats to reproductive health care he foresees under another Donald Trump presidency.
“It’s not just an issue for women,” Emhoff said. “This is an issue for all of us.”
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At Planned Parenthood on Congress Street, Emhoff joined a roundtable on reproductive rights with state Sen. Stacy Brenner (D-Cumberland) and reproductive health patients.
Emhoff recalled the moments after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the legal recognition of the right to abortion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision a little over two years ago. He heard from Harris first, who called him from Air Force 2. “I could feel and hear the rage and anger,” Emhoff said, recounting how minutes after that initial call he heard that same anger in his daughter Ella’s voice and then in a text from his mother, imploring him to do something about it.
“Of course the person responsible for this is Donald Trump,” Emhoff said, pointing to the justices the former president appointed to the high court as well as his public statements that women should be punished for getting abortions.
Emhoff also focused on Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance. “He’s an extremist and an opportunist,” Emhoff said. “He wants a full abortion ban, no exceptions.”
Maine was one of the few states to expand access to abortion after the Dobbs decision. Maine also passed a law, set to take effect Aug. 9, to protect healthcare providers from other states’ bans, which Brenner pointed out during the discussion. However, Brenner said, “it will not be enough to protect Mainers from Donald Trump and J.D. Vance’s extreme agenda to ban abortion nationwide, restrict access to contraception and defund Planned Parenthood.”
Wednesday’s discussion zeroed in on the proposals in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. This month, Maine Democrats have started to focus more on this conservative transition plan — which Trump has tried to distance himself from despite having longstanding ties with its authors — including its proposals for the Justice Department to enforce the Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion pills and to rescind no-cost coverage for birth control.
Emhoff called Project 2025 “a blueprint to destroy our democracy.”
“If that’s not enough,” Emhoff added, refer back to the concurring Dobbs opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, in which the conservative wrote the justices “should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell” — which, respectively, deal with fundamental privacy, due process and same-sex marriage rights.
“It’s all on the table,” Emhoff said.
Amid calls from Republicans to tone down the doomsday rhetoric around another Trump presidency, Maine Democrats, including Gov. Janet Mills, have doubled down on their belief that democracy is on the ballot.
Since Biden announced he’d be ending his re-election bid on Sunday, prominent Maine Democrats have lined up behind the vice president. Maine’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention unanimously voted Monday night to endorse Harris as the party nominee, following several other state delegations also throwing their support behind her.
Harris now has secured enough endorsements from Democratic delegates to make her the party’s presidential nominee, according to unofficial delegate trackers. In the first 24 hours after announcing she would seek the Democratic presidential nomination, Harris’ campaign received $81 million in donations.
The Democratic National Committee is scheduled to meet later Wednesday to set up a nomination framework and virtual roll call to select a presidential candidate ahead of the party’s national convention from Aug. 19 to Aug. 22 in Chicago.
As part of his visit to Maine, Emhoff is also attending a kickoff rally at Three of Strong Spirits in Portland and a Democratic Party fundraiser in Falmouth Wednesday evening.
Maine Morning Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com. Follow Maine Morning Star on Facebook and X.
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The post On first official campaign stop, second gentleman discusses reproductive rights in Portland appeared first on Rhode Island Current.