WASHINGTON — A 22-year-old Kentucky woman who became an abortion rights advocate after she was raped by her stepfather as a child tells her story in a new campaign ad for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Hadley Duvall said in voiceover that she’s never slept a full night in her life — her stepfather first started abusing her when she was five years old, and impregnated her when she was 12. As she speaks, images of Duvall as a child flash on the screen. The soundtrack of the ad is a song by Billie Eilish, who endorsed the vice president on Tuesday.
“I just remember thinking I have to get out of my skin,” Duvall said. “I can’t be me right now. Like, this can’t be it. I didn’t know what to do. I was a child. I didn’t know what it meant to be pregnant at all. But I had options.”
The ad is part of a continued push by the Harris campaign to highlight the consequences of the fall of Roe, including that some states have abortion restrictions with no exceptions for rape or incest. Women in some states are suffering increasingly perilous medical care and the first reported instance of a woman dying from delayed reproductive care surfaced this week.
Duvall of Owensboro, Kentucky, first told her story publicly last fall in a campaign ad for the governor’s race in her home state supporting Gov. Andy Beshear, D-Ky, who won reelection. Duvall’s stepfather was convicted of rape and is in prison; she miscarried.
Duvall is also touring the country to campaign for Harris along with other women who have been telling their personal stories since the fall of Roe, joining Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro last week.
Harris has said she lays the blame on Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, who appointed three of the conservatives to the U.S. Supreme Court who helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion.
“Because Donald Trump overturned Roe v. Wade, girls and women all over the country have lost the right to choose, even for rape or incest,” she said in the ad. “Donald Trump did this. He took away our freedom.”
During the presidential debate Sept. 10, Trump repeatedly took credit for appointing the three Supreme Court justices and leaned heavily on his catchall response to questions on abortion rights, saying the issue should be left up to the states. He said he would not sign a national abortion ban.
“I’m not signing a ban,” he said, adding that “there is no reason to sign the ban.”
But he also repeatedly declined to say whether he would veto such a ban if he were elected again — a question that has lingered as the Republican nominee has shifted his stances on the crucial election issue.