Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said Thursday that her campaign raised more than $160,000 for abortion rights groups after the Alabama Senate passed a measure banning almost all abortions in the state.
“Incredibly proud that together we were able to raise over $161K yesterday for women’s rights groups who are on the front lines of the fight to defend women’s health care & access to abortion,” the Democratic presidential hopeful wrote on Twitter.
{mosads}Harris launched the fundraising push on Wednesday hours after Alabama lawmakers approved a measure to outlaw nearly all abortions, with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. The bill also imposes criminal penalties on doctors who perform the procedure.
In a fundraising email on Wednesday, the California senator invoked the novel and popular TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale” and called on supporters to donate to four abortion and women’s rights groups, including the Yellowhammer Fund, the Clinic Vest Project, ARC Southeast and the National Network of Abortion Funds.
“Threatening to punish doctors who provide abortion care with up to 99 years of jail time,” the email reads. “This isn’t a scene from The Handmaid’s Tale. This is happening in Alabama – in our country – in the year 2019.”
Harris’s fundraising pitch was followed by similar efforts by other 2020 Democratic contenders, including former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Neither of those other candidates has said how much was raised from those pitches. The Hill has reached out to their campaigns for comment.
Democratic presidential hopefuls roundly condemned the Alabama legislation, vowing to fight the measure and other efforts to restrict abortion access at every turn.
“This ban is dangerous and exceptionally cruel—and the bill’s authors want to use it to overturn Roe v. Wade. I’ve lived in that America and let me tell you: We are not going back—not now, not ever,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on Twitter. “We will fight this. And we will win.”