'Don't get in our way': Kamala Harris opens 2024 campaign with fiery speech on abortion rights

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris opened the 2024 presidential campaign with a warning to Republican leaders who want to scale back access to abortion: Don't get in our way.

Appearing before Democratic activists and young voters, Harris launched into a fiery attack on Republican-led states and anti-abortion groups that have been making use of legislatures and friendly courts to limit access to the procedure.

"The true sign of a leader, the measure of a leader is not based on who you beat down and belittle," Harris said at Howard University, a historically Black institution that is also her alma mater. "It is based and measured on who you lift up."

Saying that she trusts women to make their own decisions, Harris said, "So don't get in our way, because if you do, we're going to stand up and we're going to organize, and we're going to speak up and we're going to say we're not having it."

In the last year, Florida and Texas have passed six-week bans that were made possible by the Supreme Court ruling last summer that overturned federal abortion rights.

A judge in Texas also decided this month to suspend the Food and Drug Administration's decades-long approval of abortion medication, paving the way for another fight at the high court over the issue that has become a cultural flashpoint.

Harris said Tuesday that bans in Florida and Texas and part of an "extremist plan" that has widespread implications for women.

Although the Supreme Court weighed in to allow access to abortion drugs to continue for now, it is a temporary ruling, she noted. "If they determine to stand by that Texas decision, it will in effect be a national ban on abortion. There is a national agenda at play by these extremist so-called leaders."

The event was the clearest signal yet that Harris and President Joe Biden intend to make abortion rights a central part of their reelection effort.

Abortion access featured prominently in Biden's reelection announcement on Tuesday morning, with activists at the Supreme Court appearing on screen in the video even before the president.

"From the video to today's event it's clear they are champions for abortion rights and access, and we are wholeheartedly with them," Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in an interview.

NARAL Pro-Choice America was one of several leading abortion rights groups that organized the rally at Howard.

"This is our moment. But you are the momentum," Planned Parenthood Federation of America president Alexis McGill Johnson told advocates during the event.

Liberals expect the issue to help drive up support for Democrats, including Biden and Harris, among young voters and voters of color. Such groups, liberal leaders say, will be most affected by laws curbing abortion access.

"Men and women are incredibly passionate about this issue. We have to harness their energy," Timmaraju told USA TODAY.

Harris has coordinated closely with abortion rights groups since the Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs case last summer. Preserving access to reproductive rights became a key focus of her midterm election pitch.

Making consistent and authentic connections with voters who put Harris and Biden in the White House will also be critical to their reelection bid, said Laphonza Butler, a confidante of Harris' and the president of EMILY's List.

"Sooner rather than later, I think these are events that are going to make the vice president Auntie Kamala," she said.

Francesca Chambers is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. Follow her on Twitter @fran_chambers.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kamala Harris warns Republicans not to "get in our way" on abortion rights