Show caption Amy Klobuchar: ‘I have got to get my name ID up. Here in Iowa I have been doubling my support, we are surging, and we have had some good polls in New Hampshire.’ Photograph: Alex Edelman/Bloomberg via Getty Images Amy Klobuchar Amy Klobuchar: ‘I will reverse Trump abortion policies in the first 100 days’ The Democratic presidential candidate, who is rising in the Iowa polls, puts reproductive rights at heart of campaign Ed Pilkington in Cedar Rapids, Iowa @edpilkington Sat 14 Dec 2019 09.00 GMT Share on Facebook

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Amy Klobuchar, one of few viable women remaining in the Democratic presidential race, has vowed to reverse Donald Trump’s key anti-abortion measures in her first 100 days in office were she to prevail in next year’s epic battle for the White House.

Klobuchar, the senator from Minnesota who is creeping up in the polls in the vital first-to-vote state of Iowa, laid out aggressive steps she would take to shore up reproductive rights were she to win the Democratic nomination and defeat Trump.

In an interview with the Guardian she said she would immediately reverse key Trump funding cuts for family planning and overturn the domestic and international “gag rules” that make it more difficult to access abortion information and services. She would also make abortion rights a key issue in making judicial appointments.

“In the first 100 days I will remove Trump’s ‘gag rules’, which I can do with no need of congressional involvement,” she said. “I will reverse funding decisions right away, and make sure that we only nominate judges for confirmation who are consistent with the law” of Roe v Wade.

In the first 100 days I will remove Trump’s ‘gag rules’ which I can do with no need of congressional involvement.

Klobuchar’s pledge to swiftly bolster reproductive rights echoes Trump’s own actions – in the opposite direction – when he entered the White House in January 2017. One of his first acts as president was to ban by executive fiat any federal funding of international groups providing information about, or access to, abortions.

Abortion is likely to be one of the hottest issues in the 2020 presidential election in which Trump, seeking re-election on a virulent anti-abortion ticket, will face fierce resistance from the eventual Democratic nominee. To add fuel to the fire, the US supreme court is currently hearing its first abortion case under its new Trump-appointed conservative majority.

The court, now sitting with the Trump-nominated justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, is considering in June Medical Services v Gee whether abortion doctors must have admitting privileges at local hospitals. It is expected to rule in the middle of election year.

Klobuchar speaks outside the supreme court as pro-choice activist rally in Washington in May. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

Following the withdrawal from the Democratic race of Kamala Harris earlier this month, Klobuchar is one of the only female candidates left besides Elizabeth Warren who can compete for a top-tier place. After a sticky start in which she was accused of bullying her staff, Klobuchar has been gaining traction in recent weeks in Iowa, which holds the first Democratic poll at its caucuses on 3 February.

The RealClearPolitics tracking poll has her in fifth place behind Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden and Warren.

At the last Democratic presidential debates in November she made an impact by stating that female candidates for the White House were held to a higher standard than men. “Otherwise we could play a game called name your favorite woman president.”

Klobuchar spoke to the Guardian at a recent campaign event organised by the Teamsters and sponsored by the Guardian and the Storm Lake Times in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She conceded she had struggled with building a national profile.

“I have got to get my name ID up. Here in Iowa I have been doubling my support, we are surging, and we have had some good polls in New Hampshire.”

The senator said she was the only candidate in the Democratic field with a proven track record of winning elections in conservative states won by Trump in 2016. “I am the only one who has not just talked the talk of bringing people with me, but who has actually won in very red districts that Trump took by double digits.”

Though she has positioned herself as a moderate in the mold of Biden, she has staked bold stances on women’s issues. She has led efforts to close the so-called “boyfriend loophole” that allows people who domestically abuse their dating partners to acquire guns and sponsored legislation to combat sexual harassment in Congress.

Now she is among the Democratic presidential candidates pushing for a reversal of Trump’s assault on abortion rights. She told the Guardian that she would no longer back efforts by Republican-controlled states to whittle down access to abortions.

Senator Amy Klobuchar appears at the Presidential Candidate Forum in Cedar Rapids organised by the Teamsters and co-sponsored by the Guardian and the Storm Lake Times. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

She pointed to an Alabama law, passed in May, that threatens doctors who perform abortions with up to 99 years in prison. “That law is in place right now,” she said (though the legislation has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge pending appeal).

To protect reproductive rights against such state-based attacks, she said that a Klobuchar administration would take up a policy pioneered by Kamala Harris to require any local measures on abortion to be approved in advance by the federal justice department. Such “pre-clearance” would be modeled on the system that operated until 2013 against voter suppression.

She would also try to avoid any damage done to reproductive rights by the conservative majority on the US supreme court by codifying Roe v Wade, the court’s landmark 1973 ruling that declared abortion to be constitutionally protected. “We don’t know what the supreme court will do, so we have to safeguard a woman’s right to choose” by legislating through Congress, she said.

Klobuchar insisted that when it came to reproductive issues, “the American public is on my side. Over 75% of the people supports Roe v Wade – some people might be pro-life themselves but don’t believe their views should be imposed on others. Over 95% think there should be access to contraception.”

Over 75% of the people supports Roe v Wade – some people might be pro-life themselves but don’t believe their views should be imposed on others

She lambasted the Trump administration for pursuing policies that are having the exact opposite impact to those stated by the president. Studies have shown the international gag rule – also known as the Mexico City policy – has had the perverse effect of increasing abortion rates around the world.

The domestic gag rule which Trump reinstated in May 2018 blocks federal funding of any family planning clinic providing abortion services. It came into effect in August and immediately led to Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest provider of sexual and reproductive healthcare in the US, pulling out of the federal family planning program.