CHICAGO — It can be difficult to bring an arena of more than 20,000 people to a hush, but on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, Hadley Duvall did just that.

The abortion rights activist from Kentucky spoke near the end of Monday evening’s program, recounting how she had been sexually abused by her stepfather and become pregnant by him at age 12.

“I can’t imagine not having a choice, but today, that’s the reality for many women and girls across the country because of Donald Trump’s abortion bans,” Duvall said, referring to the many state-level abortion restrictions enacted after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Trump, who as president appointed three Supreme Court justices who voted with the majority in the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, has called the state-enacted bans “a beautiful thing.”

“What is so beautiful about a child having to carry her parent’s child?” Duvall asked rhetorically Monday, to stunned silence in the arena.

Duvall telling her story in prime time has been just one of the many ways Democrats have featured abortion and reproductive rights prominently at their convention in Chicago this year. Several speakers at the convention have shared their personal stories related to abortion, miscarriage and infertility — and how those struggles have been compounded by Republican-led restrictions on reproductive rights.

On Monday night, standing next to Duvall onstage, beneath a large screen that read “OUR FIGHT FOR REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM,” was Kaitlyn Joshua of Louisiana, who recounted how two hospitals in her home state denied her care during a miscarriage because of state abortion bans.

“I was in pain, bleeding so much my husband feared for my life. No woman should experience what I endured, but too many have,” Joshua said.

On Tuesday night, Kate Cox, a Texas mother who was denied an abortion by the state’s Supreme Court last fall despite being told that her fetus had a fatal genetic condition and that carrying the pregnancy to term could jeopardize her future fertility, announced to cheers that she was pregnant again.

The openness to talking about abortion at the convention has mirrored an increasing willingness by women running for office to discuss their reproductive history, once seen as a liability. Fighting for abortion rights is also seen as a winning issue for Democrats, whose voter base has been galvanized since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. In the two years since, every state ballot measure that has sought to preserve or expand abortion access has been successful, while those that have sought to restrict abortion access have failed — even in states that skew conservative.

“It is incredible to see our reproductive rights and abortion access being so prominently featured at the DNC. It’s time. It’s necessary,” said Lauren Blauvelt, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio who led the successful ballot initiative campaign to enshrine abortion access into the state’s constitution last November.

Blauvelt said their group’s efforts are now focused not only on the presidential race, but also on promoting pro-abortion rights candidates in House, Senate and other down-ballot races, so that Vice President Kamala Harris, if elected, has the Democratic majorities needed to pass legislation protecting abortion rights nationwide.

Several additional ballot measures concerning reproductive rights will also be decided by voters this fall, and Democrats are hoping that they boost turnout for their party. A recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that a quarter of Americans said that abortion was “one of the single most important issues” in their choice of who to support this fall, while a 62 percent majority of Americans oppose the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe. The poll also found Americans overall trust Harris over Trump to handle the issue, 45 percent to 33 percent, with an additional 20 percent saying they don’t trust either.

The approach to abortion at the Democratic convention has been in stark contrast to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month, where abortion was barely mentioned.

“Republicans are clearly running scared. They’re seeing the same polls we are, they’re talking to the same voters we are… they are seeing the same stories and they know how unpopular their position is,” said Ally Boguhn, spokeswoman for Reproductive Freedom for All.

Most Republican lawmakers and candidates have fallen in line behind Trump, who has defaulted to saying he believes that issues concerning reproductive rights should be left to the states. Republicans quietly adopted a party platform at their convention that echoed Trump’s position and removed language that explicitly called for a national ban.

However, Trump’s frequent and vague statements on abortion — as well as running mate JD Vance’s staunch opposition to abortion — have continued to trip them up, giving Democrats opportunities to attack the GOP. And abortion rights activists have continued to warn that Trump’s allies — including those behind Project 2025, an aggressive right-wing agenda — have not stopped calling for national restrictions and would in fact continue to erode reproductive rights if Trump is reelected.

“A second Trump term would rip away even more of our rights: passing a national abortion ban, letting states monitor pregnancies and prosecute doctors, restricting birth control and fertility treatments,” said Amanda Zurawski, a Texas mother who was sent home from a hospital despite going into premature labor at 18 weeks because her condition was not deemed life-threatening enough to qualify for the abortion care she needed. Zurawski also spoke onstage Monday night.

“We cannot let that happen,” she added. “We need to vote as if lives depend on it. Because they do.”

Over the last year, Democrats have also broadened their messaging to warn that Republicans are threatening an array of reproductive rights, especially after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in February that frozen embryos are people, threatening the practice of in vitro fertilization. On Tuesday night, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and former first lady Michelle Obama both spoke about how they were only able to conceive their children through IVF.

“My struggle with infertility was more painful than any wound I earned on the battlefield,” Duckworth said.

It is unclear how much the atmosphere at the convention would have changed if President Joe Biden had remained the nominee instead of announcing one month ago that he would not seek reelection after all. Though Biden’s stance on abortion has shifted over the years, he has in the past refrained from using the word “abortion.” Some abortion rights activists previously expressed concern that Biden was not the best messenger on what has widely been viewed as a slam-dunk issue for Democrats, especially when he fumbled an answer about abortion rights during his June presidential debate against Trump.

In his speech Monday night, in which he recapped his administration’s achievements and passed the torch to Harris, Biden mentioned abortion only briefly.

“You know Trump will do everything he can to ban abortion nationwide. Oh, he will,” Biden said. “You know Kamala and Tim [Walz] will do everything they possibly can to stop him. And that’s why you have to elect senators and representatives who will restore Roe v. Wade.”

But abortion rights activists at the Democratic convention said they would not have been surprised if the issue had been put front and center even if Biden had still been the nominee.

“We know that abortion is an issue that’s really top of mind for voters this election cycle. This is something they really care about,” said Boguhn, of Reproductive Freedom for All. “I do think that it is something we would have seen regardless but Kamala Harris has been such a great champion for reproductive freedom since day one.”

Blauvelt, of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, said Harris moving to the top of the Democratic ticket has only supercharged Democrats and activists on the issue.

“She has been the leader and the champion at the White House for reproductive rights, for abortion access. … She is our champion, and absolutely her being at the top of the ticket shows how seriously we are about taking back our bodily autonomy,” she said.

Reproductive rights once again took center stage at the convention Wednesday night, themed “A Fight for Our Freedoms.” Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson noted that more than 1 in 3 American women, including nearly half of Black women, live in states with abortion bans, and tied it to the Harris campaign’s general message of freedom.

“We cannot call ourselves a free nation when women are not free,” she said. “In no way are Donald J. Trump and JD Vance more qualified than doctors and women to make these decisions.”

Emily Guskin in Washington contributed to this report.

CHICAGO — Democrats for weeks have been bracing for massive pro-Palestinian demonstrations outside this week’s convention, fearing they would recall the protests of 1968. They fretted that antiwar delegates might disrupt the proceedings inside the hall. They worried that dissent over the war in Gaza would spoil their hard-earned show of unity.

Instead, pro-Palestinian activists have won small but notable concessions at the Democratic National Convention that, three days into the event, have largely headed off any major eruptions of anger or division. Organizers have provided space for a panel to discuss Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for a vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza, and several high-profile speakers have demanded an end to the war from the stage.

Those concessions have helped defuse the issue, but most critical has been the emergence of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. Harris, in her public comments, has emphasized Palestinian suffering notably more than President Joe Biden has and held Israel more directly responsible for the high civilian death toll and the slow pace of a humanitarian aid. In addition, her campaign has ramped up its efforts to engage with those calling for a change in U.S. policy.

So while the Israel-Gaza war has hung over the convention this week, it has not dominated the gathering in the way party leaders feared.

“Vice President Harris and her team have decided to reengage in the difficult conversations necessary to rebuild our Democratic coalition, especially the part of our coalition for whom Gaza is a top policy issue,” said Abbas Alawieh, co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement. “To me, the engagement, compared to before Vice President Harris was the nominee, feels like night and day.”

He added: “We’re from this party. We love this party. … We also just so happen to be people who are in touch with loved ones in Gaza who we think deserve to be alive.”

Democratic leaders have grappled with how best to deal with the Israel-Gaza war throughout the convention. As of Wednesday evening, they still had not decided whether to put a Palestinian-American on the convention stage — a key demand of the “uncommitted” delegates who represent voters in states like Michigan and Minnesota who withheld their votes from Biden in the Democratic primaries because of his staunch support of Israel.

Family members of an American-Israeli hostage being held in Gaza are scheduled to speak before the convention concludes on Thursday.

The party has been divided since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, when militants broke through an Israel-Gaza border fence, murdered 1,200 people and took some 250 hostage. Israel in response launched a scorched-earth military campaign that has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and created a humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave that has resulted in widespread hunger.

The “uncommitted” organizers are pushing for Harris to endorse an arms embargo on Israel, a policy her national security adviser has said she does not support. During the process of drafting the Democratic platform in July, party leaders declined the request of Minnesota activist Elianne Farhat to “include language that unequivocally supports a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an arms embargo on Israel’s war and occupation against Palestinians.”

The Democratic Party platform, adopted Monday night and drafted before Harris became the nominee last month, does support a Palestinian state alongside Israel and recognizes “the right of Palestinians to live in freedom and security in a viable state of their own.” The document also backs Biden’s efforts to establish “a durable ceasefire” and “ease humanitarian suffering in Gaza.”

But rather than supporting an arms embargo against Israel, the document declares, “The United States strongly supports Israel in the fight against Hamas.”

Even if Democrats wrap up their convention without a major show of dissent, Harris will likely continue having to navigate ongoing policy disagreements over Gaza in the final two months before Election Day. Many Arab Americans and Muslims, as well as pro-Palestinian activists, have said they are open to supporting Harris but are waiting to see if she signals a willingness to condition aid to Israel and adopt an approach distinct from Biden’s.

In recent months, Biden has faced protesters at nearly every public appearance holding signs accusing him of supporting “genocide” in Gaza. While some activists say Harris is equally responsible for U.S. policy in the Mideast, she has faced fewer protesters, and some progressive activists are reluctant to hurt her chances of becoming the first female president.

Israel strongly denies that its military operations in Gaza constitute genocide, saying it tries to avoid killing innocents but that Hamas routinely embeds its fighters amid the civilian population.

Despite the lowered temperature, pro-Palestinian activists have been very visible at the convention. The “uncommitted” organizers launched an effort to encourage delegates to sign a petition declaring themselves “ceasefire delegates” calling for an immediate and permanent cessation of hostilities, as well as the return of all Israeli hostages and Palestinian captives being held in Israel — an effort that has seen more than 210 delegates sign on, according to backers.

But the scenes that Democratic leaders clearly feared most at the convention have not materialized.

Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators crowded into Union Park on Monday, less than a half-mile from the United Center where the convention is taking place, to denounce Biden and his administration as complicit in the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza. Many in the throng held signs calling Biden “Genocide Joe,” while another placard referred to the president as “the butcher of Gaza.” But the protest fell short of the tens of thousands of people organizers were predicting.

A handful of pro-Palestinian activists attempted to protest during Biden’s speech on Monday night and unfurled a banner that read “stop arming Israel” — an effort that was quickly drowned out by cheers and delegates who raised “We Joe” signs to block them.

On Wednesday, protesters streamed back into Union Park for another rally and march. By late afternoon more than a thousand people were clustered around a makeshift stage for the unpermitted demonstration as a phalanx of police officers looked on from across the street.

Organized by the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine, the rally was expected to be the largest of the week, and lines of protesters were still arriving an hour after it began. The event’s slogan was “Shut the DNC down,” and speakers and chanters focused their ire on the gathering of Democrats nearby.

An emcee led the crowd in chants of “DNC, don’t you lie, because of you, our people die.”

The war has also played out in subtle ways inside the convention hall and onstage, as it has across the country. Critics of the protesters often accuse them of fomenting antisemitism, and on Tuesday evening, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) decried growing antisemitism and Islamophobia in the country — although he blamed Republican nominee Donald Trump.

‘Tonight, folks, I am wearing this blue square, to stand up against antisemitism, to stand up to all hate,” he said.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has been fiercely critical of Israel and supports cutting off offensive weapons, spoke more forcefully than other speakers about the war, but even his comments were limited to a single line. “We must end this horrific war in Gaza, bring home the hostages and demand an immediate cease-fire,” Sanders said Tuesday.

And Harris’s husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, spoke in personal terms about pride in his Jewish faith without directly addressing the war.

“Kamala has fought against antisemitism and all forms of hate her whole career,” Emhoff said. “And she encouraged me, as second gentleman, to take up that fight, which is so personal to me.”

Lavora Barnes, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said in an interview that the Israel-Gaza war has been front-and-center for nearly a year in her state, home to one of the country’s largest Arab American and Muslim populations, where the “uncommitted” movement began.

Barnes said the war is still a top issue because people are continuing to die, but that for voters for whom Gaza is a top issue, “what’s gone is some of the disappointment because they had someone at the top of the ticket who they felt was not open.”

“The vice president has expressed an openness to have conversations. She said the word cease-fire early, and having her at the top of the ticket has helped us reset,” Barnes said. “Within our Michigan delegation, our uncommitted delegates are part of our Democratic family. They’re here celebrating their party just like we are.”

In perhaps the clearest sign of the protesters’ impact, Biden himself addressed them in his speech Monday night as he said he was trying to negotiate an end to the Gaza conflict.

“We’re working around-the-clock … to prevent a wider war and reunite hostages with their families and surge humanitarian health and food assistance into Gaza now, to end the civilian suffering of the Palestinian people, and finally, finally, finally deliver a cease-fire and end this war,” Biden said. “Those protesters out in the street, they have a point. A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.”

CHICAGO — On the eve of Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepting her party’s presidential nomination here, about a thousand chanting protesters again sought to make the Democratic National Convention focus more meaningfully on the war in Gaza and deaths of Palestinian civilians.

“DNC, don’t you lie. Because of you, our people die,” the crowd shouted as a line of police officers watched on the perimeter. By early evening, the throng of marchers was blocks long. There were no immediate reports of arrests.

The scene was in keeping with other rallies and demonstrations this week. With one convention day to go, no major disruptions have materialized.

At the height of the events, demonstrators have converged on the city’s streets primarily to speak out against the United States’ handling of the fighting in Gaza — Israel’s response to the deadly cross-border attack by Hamas in October.

Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling — who has personally surveyed the biggest rallies, including the one that began late Wednesday afternoon — credits his officers with responding with proportional force. The city, he declared, would not descend into the chaos that defined the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

“It’s 2024,” Snelling said at a Wednesday briefing. “And the Chicago Police Department proved that. So let’s get off of 1968.”

There were some worries that “professional provocateurs” from out of town would be on the scene. Yet the groups calling for “cease-fire now,” among other causes, have largely stuck to organizers’ aim: peacefully airing grievances in a national spotlight.

No one wanted any violence — just for their message to reach those gathering in the United Center, said Nazek Sankari, 33, co-chair of the Chicago chapter of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network.

“They can hear us and they know what’s going on,” she said Wednesday, hours before Harris’s running mate. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, was set to take the stage.

Sankari, whose group helped organize the afternoon rally at Union Park, said she believed that authorities are purposely downplaying the number of people taking to the streets, filling public parks and leading chants outside after-parties. “They try to undercut us and the movement,” she said, though she gave no specifics.

Long before delegates began filling the convention center Monday, police made their presence known. Barriers popped up around downtown hot spots as well as quieter neighborhoods, where some residents have found “Free Palestine” leaflets and other advocacy materials. Officers cycled along the Chicago River, which has glistened through a week of what visitors admiringly described as nearly perfect summer weather.

The biggest confrontation unfolded Tuesday night during a rally outside the Israeli Consulate. A group of demonstrators marched into a police line that had formed to block access. Officers in riot gear encircled some protesters, witnesses said, stopping them from being able to disperse.

About five dozen people, including three journalists, were arrested.

“We declared a mass arrest after our officers were physically confronted,” said Snelling, who insisted that protesters “showed up with the intent of committing acts of violence and vandalism.”

The city plans to prosecute them, he said, adding that 22 in custody were from out of town.

Hundreds of demonstrators have showed up from a southwest Chicago suburb known as Little Palestine, according to Nida Sahouri Ali, president of the local chapter of American Muslims for Palestine. Her group had helped arrange buses to shuttle residents downtown, and some businesses in the community closed to give workers a chance to speak their minds.

Edgar Mujica, 38, went straight from the doctor’s office to the Wednesday protest in Union Park, undaunted by the sling on his arm or the fracture in his spine — the result of a car accident a couple of weeks earlier.

It’s been a tough year, he said, but while the world is watching Chicago this week, he felt compelled to show up and register his anger.

“I lost my job,” he explained. “I’m on my last pennies to pay rent. And yet I see my problems, and I see the suffering of people in Palestine, and mine is nothing in comparison.”

About a half-mile away, supporters of Israel raised their own voices in support of the men, women and children abducted by Hamas during its rampage in the fall.

Josh Weiner, co-founder of the nonprofit Chicago Jewish Alliance, was among them. “Please speak out about the hostages in Gaza,” he told the several dozen people there. “Please speak out about the threat of radical Islam.”

LOS ANGELES — Lawyers for Hunter Biden sparred with prosecutors in federal court here Wednesday over what evidence should be allowed in his tax trial next month, giving a glimpse into what sordid details could be revealed about the lavish spending and sex life of the president’s son while he was addicted to drugs.

The trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection on Sept. 5 and opening statements on Sept. 9, U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi said. Prosecutors and defense attorneys said they expect the trial to take up to eight days in court, plus two days for jury selection.

A Delaware jury found Biden guilty in June in an unrelated trial on three felony gun charges. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 13.

In Los Angeles, Biden is accused of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes from 2016 through 2019. The charges include failing to file and pay taxes, tax evasion and filing false tax returns. Three are felonies and six are misdemeanors.

Biden has pleaded not guilty and has said he has since repaid the government his delinquent taxes.

Wednesday’s pretrial hearing coincided with the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where his father celebrated Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential candidacy after deciding not to run for a second term in November.

With the elder Biden out of the race, the once-intense political interest of Republicans in Hunter Biden’s legal troubles may wane. But the trial will still once again spotlight the Biden family’s dark years after Hunter Biden’s brother, Beau Biden, died of brain cancer.

Both federal indictments focus on a period when Hunter Biden admits he was addicted to crack cocaine. At the time, he earned money from controversial contracts he had with foreign businesses.

The gun trial showcased the behind-the-scenes drama in the Biden family, with relatives taking the witness stand to describe Hunter Biden’s years of drug addiction. He was convicted of lying in 2018 about his drug use on paperwork to buy a gun, and of illegally possessing that gun.

The Los Angeles trial will center on more-complicated tax charges and could delve into Biden’s sex life — much of which he chronicled in his 2021 memoir. Among the accusations laid out in the nine-count indictment is that Biden wrote off money he paid sex workers as business expenses on his tax forms.

Prosecutors said Wednesday that discussing such details in court — and potentially calling witnesses that can speak to his relationships with the sex workers — is necessary to make their case.

Biden’s attorney Mark Geragos said such salacious details are not necessary for a trial about tax charges and are only intended to impugn his client’s character in the eyes of the jury.

“They want the bad acts, they want the character assassination, they want to slime him because that is the whole purpose — making him look bad is hopefully what will get the jury past the idea of ‘Wait a second, he did file the taxes?’” Geragos said in court.

Scarsi suggested that he would allow details about Biden’s sex life, but warned that testimony could not get too graphic.

“I really want to stay away from any explicit testimony that can’t be sanitized — we don’t need to know specifics about actions that occurred between two people. Witnesses have been allowed to meander into areas that weren’t appropriate, and I don’t want to get into that here,” Scarsi said.

The judge ruled on a few other motions dictating what would be allowed at trial, including saying that defense attorneys could not mention the long-ago death of Biden’s mother and sister to explain his drug addiction and the actions alleged in the indictment. But Biden’s team is allowed to discuss the more-recent death of his brother to the jury, though not as a way to justify his actions.

Biden’s indictments on the tax and gun charges almost didn’t happen. Last summer, he reached a tentative agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax-related charges and admit to the facts of a gun charge.

But that plea deal fell apart after a Delaware judge questioned some of its terms. Soon after, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland named U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, who had been leading the investigation, as special counsel. The appointment gave Weiss more independence than a typical U.S. attorney has, along with clear authority to file charges outside Delaware, paving the way for the tax indictment in California.

Stein reported from Washington.