"Kansas voters have sent a strong message: This fall, Americans will vote to preserve this right," said the Democratic president during an intervention at the White House.
The residents of this rural state were the first Americans called upon to vote on the right to abortion since the Supreme Court buried it on June 24, and the ballot was a test before the November elections.
The Democrats and their leader Joe Biden, weakened by galloping inflation and a slowing economy, hope to save a few seats in Congress by mobilizing their voters in defense of the right to abortion.
The Kansas vote gave them reason to hope: with a high turnout, nearly 60% of voters on Tuesday rejected a constitutional amendment that would have weakened the right to terminate a pregnancy.
This state in the center of the United States is nevertheless very conservative: in the past 80 years, it has voted only once in favor of a Democratic presidential candidate, and analysts predicted a tight result.
For abortion rights advocates, however, the result is not surprising.
"The people of Kansas have proven what has long been said: defending access to abortion is politically winning," commented Jenny Lawson of the powerful family planning organization Planned Parenthood.
- "Extremists" -
According to the latest polls, around 60% of the American population supports abortion rights, and while there are significant partisan divides, nearly 40% of Republican voters support it.
In his speech – virtual because he is still positive for Covid-19 – Joe Biden described as “extremists” the elected Republicans who are trying “to ban all abortions in all states”.
"They have no idea the power of American women, but last night in Kansas they were able to take the measure of it," he continued, before signing his second executive order in a month, intended to minimize the effects of the Supreme Court's about-face.
The first offered guarantees to mobile abortion clinics, and sought to protect access to the morning after pill.
This orders the government to examine ways of extending medical coverage for women forced to travel for abortions. It also plans to promote research on the impact of the Court's decision and to fight against the refusal of care by nursing staff.
- "Fight like the devils" -
"I am happy to see that President Biden is encouraged by the victory in Kansas," commented Rachel O'Leary Carmona, director of the feminist association Women's March, in a press release.
For her, the inhabitants of this state "told the extremist Republicans (...) to go to hell" but they also gave "a lesson to the Democrats" on the importance of "organizing and fighting like devils" to defend women's rights.
However, Joe Biden's initiatives remain rather vague and have a limited scope in a country where presidential power, however great it may seem, does not weigh heavily against the powers of the States, Congress and the Supreme Court.
They have not prevented a dozen states from banning abortions on their soil and, in the long term, abortion will be almost impossible in half of the 50 states of the country, especially in the south and the more religious center.
Conversely, progressive states seek to sanctify the right to abortion and voters in California, Michigan, Nevada and Vermont will vote, in turn, this year on protective measures.
On Wednesday evening, before the leadership of his party, the president gave a taste of the message that the Democrats will hammer during the upcoming campaign.
Joe Biden said democracy was "threatened by MAGA extremists within the Republican Party" -- a reference to the acronym of Donald Trump's famous slogan, "Make America Great Again".
Faced with this danger, the Democrats must succeed in making their compatriots understand the importance of the "essential, fundamental choices" between "us and the MAGA Republicans", he assured.
