Kamala Harris pressed a forceful case against Donald Trump on Tuesday, Sept. 10 in their first and perhaps only debate before the presidential election, repeatedly goading him in an event that showcased their starkly different visions for the country on abortion, immigration and American democracy.
The ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that declared frozen embryos are children, which led to a decrease of in vitro fertilization services in the state, was mentioned during Tuesday night’s presidential debate.
"Couples who pray and dream of having a family are being denied IVF treatments," said Harris at the debate. "Working women who are working one or two jobs who can barely afford childcare as it is have to travel to another state to get on a plane, sitting next to strangers to go and get the health care she needs and barely can afford to do it.”
Late last month, Trump called for making government-sponsored insurance plans fully pay for IVF treatments without explaining how he would pay for the policy, reports AL.com.
“I have been a leader on IVF, which is fertilization. In fact, when they got a very negative decision on IVF from the Alabama courts, I saw the people of Alabama and the legislature two days later voted it in,” Trump said at the debate. “I’ve been a leader on it. They know that, and everybody else knows it. I have been a leader on fertilization IVF.”
The Democratic vice president provoked Trump with reminders about the 2020 election loss that he still denies, delivered derisive asides at his false claims and sought to underscore the Republican former president's role in the Supreme Court's overturning of a national right to abortion two years ago.
Trump tore into Harris as too liberal and a continuation of Biden's unpopular administration, as he launched into the sort of freewheeling personal attacks and digressions from which his advisers and supporters have tried to steer him away.
Less than two months from Election Day and hours before the first early ballots will begin to be mailed Wednesday in Alabama, the debate offered the clearest look yet at a presidential race that has been repeatedly upended.
Harris promised tax cuts aimed at the middle class and said she would push to restore a federally guaranteed right to abortion overturned by the Supreme Court two years ago. Trump said his proposed tariffs would help the U.S. stop being cheated by allies on trade and said he would work to swiftly end the Russia-Ukraine war — though he twice refused to say he believed it was in America's interest for Ukraine, which bipartisan majorities in Congress have backed, to win the war.
Trump again denied that he lost to Biden four years ago, when a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to stop the certification of his loss based on false or unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. He tried to reverse the question of threats to American democracy and suggested criticism of him could be linked to the assassination attempt he survived in July.
Read more on Tuesday's debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump here.
