Beyoncé
brings star power to Harris rally in Texas with abortion law in the spotlight
Singer says
America is on the ‘brink of history’ as Kamala Harris said Trump would seek to
make state’s abortion ban nationwide
Lauren
Gambino in Houston
Sat 26 Oct
2024 06.03 BST
Beyoncé on
Friday lent her star power to Kamala Harris at a high-octane rally in her
native Texas, declaring that the country was on the “brink of history” as the
vice-president warned the state’s near-total abortion ban could become the law
of the land if Donald Trump is elected.
“For all the
men and women in this room, and watching around the country, we need you,”
Beyoncé told a crowd of 30,000 people at the open-air Shell Energy stadium in
Houston.
With the
presidential race effectively deadlocked, Harris detoured from her frenetic
race across the seven battleground states to appear in reliably Republican
Texas, where she sought to highlight the state’s abortion restrictions for
voters who have yet to make up their minds or cast a ballot.
“Let us be
clear: If Donald Trump wins again, he will ban abortion nationwide,” Harris
told the audience, her largest to date. Harris walked on to the stage, as she
has ever since she became the presumptive nominee roughly 100 days ago, to
Beyoncé’s hard-charging anthem, Freedom.
Harris has
centered her campaign on the theme of freedom. In the closing days of the
campaign, she has painted Trump as posing a threat to hard-won progress,
eroding access to reproductive care, seeking to walk back LGBTQ rights and
targeting American democracy itself. Earlier this week, Harris agreed that
Trump was a “fascist”.
Harris spoke
to an exuberant crowd, thousands of whom had waited hours in the sticky Houston
heat to attend. Rally-goers were given flashing wristbands in all different
colors. They danced and sang as a DJ spun pop ballads before the event began.
But the
message Harris came to deliver was sobering. She listed the sprawling impacts
of abortion bans like the one in Texas, which she called “ground zero for the
right for reproductive freedom.”
“All that to
say, elections matter,” Harris said.
Despite the
speculation, the megastar did not perform. “I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé
said. “We are at the precipice of an incredible shift, the brink of history,”
Beyoncé told the roaring crowd.
In the final
days before the election, the Harris campaign is tapping the star power of the
party’s most popular figures and celebrity supporters. On Friday night, Willie
Nelson, the country music star and Texas resident, performed his best-known
songs, including On the Road Again and actor Jessica Alba urged women to vote.
Beyoncé was joined by her mother, Tina Knowles, and her former bandmate Kelly
Rowland.
“We are
grabbing back the pen from those who are trying to write an American story that
would deny the right for women to make our own decisions about our bodies,”
Rowland said. “Today that means grabbing that pen and casting my vote for
Kamala Harris.”
The night
before, Harris held her first campaign event with Barack Obama. They were
joined onstage in Atlanta by rocker Bruce Springsteen, who played a three-song
set and branded Trump an “American tyrant.” On Saturday, Harris will rally with
Michelle Obama in Michigan.
Harris does
not expect to win Texas. But Democrats here are suddenly hopeful after polls
suggest an unexpectedly close senate race between the Republican incumbent, Ted
Cruz, and the Democrat, Dallas-area congressman Colin Allred.
Democrats
face a daunting senate map this cycle. With a loss in West Virginia all but
certain, and Montana slipping out of reach, their hopes of maintaining
narrow-control of the Senate may rest on an upset in the Lone Star state.
“Everything
is bigger in Texas,” Allred said on Friday night. “But Ted Cruz is too small
for Texas.”
The
emotional heart of the evening was the personal stories of Texas women who had
nearly died from pregnancy-related complications because they did not receive
proper care.
Ondrea, a
Texas woman who appeared in a new Harris campaign, became emotional as she
shared her harrowing experience after a miscarriage at 16 weeks and needing an
emergency abortion that she was denied under the state’s law. A video played
before her remarks showed her with a wound and scars that stretched down her
body, from her breast to her pelvis, after a six-hour surgery in which she said
doctors had to cut open her torso in order to save her life.
Texas
residents Amanda and Josh Zurawski, who have become powerful surrogates for
Harris on the campaign trail, also shared their story. At 18 weeks pregnant,
Amanda Zurawski began to suffer complications and needed an abortion. There was
no chance the foetus would survive, but doctors refused to terminate the
pregnancy until she eventually developed sepsis, days later.
“I was
finally close enough to death to deserve healthcare in Texas,” Amanda Zurawski
said.
Todd Ivey, a
reproductive health specialist in Houston, addressed the crowd surrounded by a
team of doctors and medical professionals in white lab coats. He emphasized the
challenges of administering care to patients when it could mean risking arrest.
Since the Texas law took effect the state’s infant mortality has risen.
“This is a
healthcare crisis,” he said. This is unacceptable and it is cruel.”
Among those
in the crowd was Sara Gonzales, 32, of Splendora, Texas, who drove to the
stadium straight from an early-morning shift at Starbucks. Gonzales said she
considers herself an independent and in 2020, wrote in a candidate for
president. But the political stakes changed, Gonzales said, the supreme court
overturned Roe v Wade, and Texas enacted its near-total ban on abortion.
“Being a
woman in Texas right now, it’s not OK,” she said. “I should have freedom over
my own body.”
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