Koa Beck 

Because Harris has a strategic plan for post-Roe America

In March 2024, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris made history beyond her vice presidency. She became the first sitting president or vice president ever to publicly visit an abortion clinic.

For this monumental occasion, Harris toured a Planned Parenthood in St. Paul, Minnesota, along with the clinic’s chief medical officer. Nearly two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, stripping Americans of the constitutional right to an abortion, her presence at a clinic in Minnesota exhibits noteworthy strategy. Beyond optics, Harris’s historic visit extended the abortion rights dialogue beyond what was lost to what is now necessary in a post-Roe America. State efforts, across legislation and activism, are critical to maintain this essential health care—a potent component of contemporary conversations surrounding abortion rights.

Patients in need of an abortion are going to other states (if they have the resources), a precedent that has been building up for some time in the United States. Since federal protections for abortion access have been decimated, a state like Minnesota, where Harris visited, is compensating for the health care needs of an entire nation. Minnesota has seen a 36 percent increase in abortions, suggesting that more patients are coming from neighboring states like Iowa, Wisconsin, and South Dakota—all of which have abortion restrictions or bans—and perhaps elsewhere. This wasn’t just because of geography; this albeit complex path to abortion access was possible through state effort. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, Minnesota became the first state to enshrine abortion access into the state constitution, creating a “fire wall,” according to Governor, and now Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Tim Walz. The legal capability to keep performing abortions in this sweeping and harrowing landscape was actively strategized, proposed, and secured thanks to state initiatives. And now, this initiative is serving Americans in at least four additional states.

Minnesota will now be marked in history for providing essential health care when the Supreme Court deemed that care superfluous; a severe contrast that was multiple decades in the making. Harris’s distinctive visit to Planned Parenthood acknowledges the critical role of states in abortion access when constitutional rights are taken. And, even more importantly, what comes next.

Koa Beck is the author of the nonfiction book, White Feminism.