Presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) will campaign for the co-sponsor of Virginia's controversial abortion bill this weekend.
The Harris campaign announced on Thursday that the senator will attend events in northern Virginia. Harris will be on hand to launch voter canvassing operations for state delegate Kathy Tran, who co-sponsored and presented a radical abortion bill that would have permitted unrestricted abortion through the third trimester of pregnancy.
Harris's national press secretary Ian Sams tweeted the news and mentioned Tran's Twitter account alongside Dan Helmer's, who is running in Virginia's 40th district.
NEW >> @KamalaHarris to campaign for Virginia House of Delegates candidates on Sunday, ahead of the November 5 elections there. She'll launch @KathyKLTran and @HelmerVA canvasses, and help raise money for @VAHouseDems with @C_Herring.
via @bluevirginiahttps://t.co/EbyJ1XtoKZ
— Ian Sams (@IanSams) October 24, 2019
Tran's presentation of the abortion bill became a significant source of controversy. A Republican lawmaker asked if the bill would allow abortion right up until the point of birth, to which Tran replied, "My bill would allow that, yes."
A little less than half of the Democratic caucus supported the bill, and it was eventually defeated.
Democratic governor Ralph Northam, whose governorship survived a blackface scandal, voiced support for the bill.
"If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable," he said during a radio interview. "The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother."
Harris has criticized some states for passing pro-life legislation. Her campaign proposed a "preclearance requirement" that would require a state to obtain approval from her administration's Department of Justice before any abortion law could be enacted.
"We cannot tolerate a perspective that is about going backward and not understanding women have agency, women have value, women have authority to make decisions about their own lives and their own bodies," Harris said at an MSNBC town hall.
"On this issue, I'm kind of done," she added.
When she served as California attorney general, Harris launched the investigation into pro-life activist David Daleiden after he began releasing undercover footage of abortionists discussing the sale of baby organs. Her successor, Attorney General Xavier Becerra, eventually filed several criminal charges against the activist.