U.S. Reps. Summer Lee (D-12th District) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) rallied Tuesday in Pittsburgh’s South Side neighborhood to spotlight Vice President Kamala Harris’s record on reproductive rights and warn against the re-election of former President Donald Trump.
Both Lee and Pressley have endorsed Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president. Harris has been a vocal supporter of reproductive rights and access to abortion before and after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Bri Erskine, a Pittsburgher who moved from Nashville after the nearly-50-year-old decision guaranteeing a national right to abortion was overturned, spoke about how her health complications led her to support a Harris presidency. Erskine dealt with life-threatening heavy periods, the volume of blood loss and clotting resembling that of miscarriages. More than once, she received hours of blood transfusions in emergency rooms.
Getting an IUD, she said, saved her life. But when the Supreme Court’s draft of the opinion that would overturn Roe leaked to the press, Erskine had to consider whether her state would continue to allow her to access reproductive healthcare. Since she traveled for work, her doctor pulled up a map of the United States and said “Tell me where you’re working, and I’ll tell you how to be safe.”
When Roe v. Wade was overturned, Erskine moved to Pennsylvania.
“I literally fled my home of seven years to ensure that I’d always be able to safely access the healthcare that I needed,” she said.
In May, former President Donald Trump was asked if he supported restrictions on birth control. He responded that it was something his administration was “looking at,” that states would have different policies and he would release a comprehensive policy on it. Later that day, he posted on his social media platform Truth Social that he would never advocate for restrictions or a ban on birth control.
At the rally Tuesday, reproductive rights advocate Sydney Etheredge called Trump the “architect of the abortion bans,” adding that it’s “just the beginning.” Etheredge warned of Project 2025, a nearly 1000-page conservative policy proposal for a Republican presidency that advocates for a stringent abortion ban and ending the sale of abortion pills.
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Trump has disavowed Project 2025 as a reflection of a potential agenda for a second term, but Etheredge tied it to a Trump and J.D. Vance presidency, referring to it as Trump’s “Project 2025 agenda.”
“We all know that actions, they speak louder than words,” she said. “The reality is that even though Trump and Vance are trying to distance themselves from Project 2025, Trump championed a national abortion ban when he was president.”
While Trump previously advocated for a 20-week national abortion ban during his presidency, he has since said he would not sign a national abortion ban if re-elected.
Lee took the stage with a fiery speech about Pennsylvania’s role as a refuge state, Black maternal morbidity rates and access to reproductive healthcare for the working class.
“Right now, we are at the crossroads where we’re going to choose what nation we want to be, what nation we are going to be,” Lee said. “Each of us in this room has not just the opportunity, but we have the responsibility to build that nation up.”
She recalled her time as an organizer for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016, saying she worked 100 hours a week calling people.
“That year, we woke up, and we had a Trump presidency,” Lee said. “Then the wheels were in motion. There are things that they have done that it’s going to be generations before we undo. Don’t let them have a chance to do more. Don’t let them finish the job.”
Pressley opened with a story about her mother, a “super voter” who emphasized the importance of uplifting one’s community.
“I would vote with her, and she would turn to me and say ‘Never forget that we are powerful.’ I believed her then, and I still do today,” she said.
She then turned the spotlight to her 16-year-old stepdaughter, Cora, calling herself a “proud bonus mom” after marrying Cora’s father Conan Harris. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, Pressley thought of what it meant for Cora.
“I was sitting in the bleachers at her eighth grade graduation and immediately felt with a heavy sense of dread that my daughter would be growing up in a country with fewer rights than I had,” she said. “Rooted in my mother’s example and fighting for my daughter’s future, I could not be prouder to endorse Kamala Harris for president of the United States.”
She boosted Harris’ record on protecting reproductive rights as attorney general of California and as a senator. More recently, in March, Harris became the first vice president to visit an abortion clinic.
“Let’s give ourselves a moment to conceive of a truly just America,” Pressley said. “In a truly just America, bodily autonomy as a right is codified in law and your access to care is not dependent on your zip code, your immigration status, your income or your background. Let me make it plain, a just America is possible.”
While answering questions after her speech, Pressley reaffirmed her belief that a Harris presidency is necessary to protect reproductive rights in the United States.
“Under a Kamala Harris White House, you have a Department of Health and Human Services who wants to preserve our access to abortion care, which is healthcare, and also expand access.” she said. “In a Trump White House, and with a weaponized Trump Supreme Court, there is no access to abortion care, which is healthcare. Again, this is about miscarriage management. It’s about bodily autonomy.”
In Pennsylvania, abortion is legal up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, but Lee said a Trump White House could mean an end to its status as a refuge for women from other states with restrictive abortion lawes.
“You can’t rest on your state, your state legislatures, because if federally, we aren’t able to contribute to abortion care, then that means that every state will be impacted,” Lee said.
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