WASHINGTON — In a new campaign ad for President Joe Biden, Kentuckian Hadley Duvall shares her story as a survivor of rape by her stepfather.

What You Need To Know

  • Kentucky abortion rights advocate Hadley Duvall has appeared in a new campaign ad for President Joe Biden

  • In the ad, Duvall shares her story as a survivor of rape by her stepfather 

  • She also has appeared at a campaign event with First Lady Jill Biden and alongside Vice President Kamala Harris  

  • Duvall appeared in an ad in support of Kentucky's Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear last year 

“When Roe v. Wade was overturned, immediately I just thought about being 12 and the first thing that was told to me when I saw that positive pregnancy test was ‘You have options,’ and you know, if Roe v. Wade would have been overturned sooner, I wouldn’t have heard that,” Duvall says in the ad.

Duvall already has appeared at a campaign event with First Lady Jill Biden and alongside Vice President Kamala Harris.

She also appeared in an ad in support of Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear last year.

Biden has made reproductive rights a centerpiece of his campaign, blaming former President Donald Trump for the U.S. Supreme Court ending the constitutional right to an abortion two years ago.

Trump appointed three of the six justices responsible for that decision.

“Girls like me across the country are suffering,” Duvall says in the ad. “Their futures are being ripped away. Trump and JD Vance don’t care about women. They don’t care about girls in this situation. They will continue to take our rights away.”

Before the reversal or Roe v. Wade, Louisville was the only place to get an abortion in Kentucky.

After Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban went into effect following the Supreme Court’s decision, patients were forced to travel outside the state for the procedure, to places like Hope Clinic in Granite City, Ill., about 260 miles away from Louisville.  

Co-owner Julie Burkhart told Spectrum News Thursday that the clinic saw close to 250 Kentucky patients last year and is on track to see about the same this year.

“I think it is of the utmost importance that, you know, when it comes to the Biden-Harris campaign, talking about reproductive rights and reproductive freedom because if we don’t have bodily autonomy for people across this country, we do not have full rights in this country,” she said.

Republicans recently unveiled a party platform that, for the first time in four decades, does not include a national abortion ban.

Vance opposes abortion rights, including in cases of incest or rape, and like Trump, he opposes a national abortion ban, saying the issue should be left up to states.

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