Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign has put new emphasis on her advocacy for abortion rights, an issue that has defined the vice president’s tenure in Washington. That record, dating back to her time as California’s attorney general, could indicate how she might approach the issue if elected to the White House.

As vice president, Harris has arguably been the nation’s most visible champion of abortion rights. Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Harris has traveled the country — with stops in states including Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Iowa and Illinois — to criticize abortion bans. In March, she became the first president or vice president to visit an abortion clinic. 

During her four-year tenure as a U.S. senator, Harris touted reproductive health as a priority, pushing legislation that would improve pregnancy-related health outcomes for Black women, whose higher rates of mortality and morbidity researchers attribute, in part, to implicit bias in the medical system. And in her 2020 presidential campaign, she outlined one of the most robust abortion rights platforms in the Democratic primary, arguing that states should need approval from the Department of Justice before passing abortion restrictions. 

Abortion figured far less prominently in Harris’ earlier career, in part because her home state of California had relatively few restrictions on abortion in 2003, when Harris was elected San Francisco’s district attorney, or in 2010, when she became the state’s attorney general. 

“California had already reached its settlement on abortion rights,” said Melissa Murray, a legal scholar at New York University who focuses on reproductive law. “It was a more progressive state on that question.”

In one of her earlier public statements about abortion, in 2009, Harris criticized the killing of Dr. George Tiller by anti-abortion extremists in Kansas. Harris said Tiller’s murder “should be universally condemned, whether you support a woman’s right to choose as I do, or not,” the San Jose Mercury News reported at the time.

As her career advanced, Harris’ focus on the issue deepened. That emphasis, several legal scholars argue, illustrates a particular interest in leveraging the law to protect abortion rights. Harris’ campaign declined to comment for this story. 

As California’s attorney general, Harris signed on to several amicus briefs in support of abortion rights, including a multi-state effort to overturn a 2013 abortion law from Texas. In 2015, her office launched an investigation into anti-abortion organizers who sent undercover videographers to film inside Planned Parenthood clinics. By the time the state prosecuted that case, however, Harris had already left to become a U.S. senator. 

Most significantly, perhaps, as attorney general Harris pushed for state legislation to impose tougher regulations on anti-abortion centers, also known as crisis pregnancy centers. Those centers, which aim to dissuade people from seeking abortions and are often publicly funded, frequently do not employ licensed health care professionals. 

The California law, which passed in 2015, required centers to disclose if they were not licensed medical facilities and to post signs clarifying that clinics in the state could provide abortions at little or no out-of-pocket cost. But it was overturned in 2018 by the U.S. Supreme Court, in a decision authored by conservative Justice Clarence Thomas. 

Still, Harris’ involvement has already drawn attention from abortion opponents. SBA Pro-Life America, one of the nation’s most influential anti-abortion groups, singled out her support for the 2015 law in a recent blog post that called her “extreme on abortion.” 

And almost a decade later, these centers have become a focal point in the new battle over abortion rights. Since Roe v. Wade’s overturn, abortion opponents have sought to expand their public funding. Democratic leaders — particularly state attorneys general — are working to tighten regulations, especially about what services the centers can advertise.

“California did something no other state had, and that was to lead the way in terms of investigating crisis pregnancy centers,” said Michele Goodwin, a professor of constitutional law and global health policy at Georgetown University. “When one looks at Kamala Harris and her experience in the state of California, it’s not only been as a prosecutor, but helping lead a state.”

Goodwin and Murray joined a meeting with the vice president in June 2022, just before the overturn of Roe. Both scholars independently described Harris as showing insight and curiosity about the legal issues that could arise if the Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights, including whether states could leverage civil or criminal punishment to deter people from getting abortions, potential restrictions on people’s ability to travel out of state for abortions, and whether devices such as cell phones with period tracking apps could be used by law enforcement or government agencies to gather information about people who may be pregnant and potentially seeking abortions. 

“We were there to provide expertise, but we were talking to a very well-informed audience,” Murray said. 

This November, Democrats will face an uphill battle in keeping control of the U.S. Senate, which would be a necessary condition to pass any federal laws protecting abortion rights. 

Without congressional majorities, a President Harris would have to rely on presidential power to enact any meaningful abortion policy, including enforcing existing federal laws through agencies like the Department of Justice or Health and Human Services. That could mean challenging state or local laws that limit abortion — including ones that curb people’s ability to travel out of state for the procedure — or defending laws meant to protect or expand access.

“Her track record is that she’s not willing to equivocate about bending the law: If a federal law says X, that’s what a federal law says. If states protect Y, that’s what states protect,” said Rachel Rebouché, dean of the Temple University Beasley School of Law. “If there’s a constitutional right to travel, we’re going to protect it.”