During an interview, Vice President Kamala Harris criticized the Supreme Court for overturning Roe v. Wade and claimed to be “the daughter of a woman, and a grandchild of a woman.”
After the high court struck down federal abortion protections in its most shocking decision in modern history, Harris sounded the alarm on CNN, saying “everyone has something at risk on this.”
She made a comment about how it affected her own life in an effort to strike a personal note.
As a father, I gave it some thought. Son and daughter, both in their 20s, are our only offspring. Being a godparent to teenagers, I gave it some thought. I pictured it as an aunt of little children,” Harris remarked.
Reporter Dana Bash proposed, “And you as a woman?”
Harris responded, “And a woman myself, and the daughter of a woman, and the granddaughter of a woman.”
She diverged with her fellow Democrats, who are similarly furious over the decision, when it came to asking that the Senate abolish the filibuster.
The votes aren’t there right now, according to the Senate’s current makeup, Harris said.
She said, “I know why you’re asking that.” However, if we don’t have the necessary numbers in the Senate, we can’t even begin to answer whether it will occur or not.
And once more, that is the reason I keep bringing up the significance of an election that will take place in just 130 or so days.
Conservative Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have previously opposed eliminating the filibuster, which would require unanimous support from all 50 Democrats in the Senate.
President Joe Biden’s efforts to pass both his Build Back Better program and federal voting rights legislation failed as a result of their opposition to the tactic.
However, Democratic leaders up to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have encouraged the upper chamber to end the filibuster due to the imminent impact the high court’s decision may have on millions of women.
Pelosi wrote in a letter to her colleagues on Monday, “It is apparent from how Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell filled the Supreme Court that elections have implications.
In order to end the filibuster and restore women’s fundamental rights—as well as freedom for all Americans—it is imperative that we strengthen and grow our pro-choice majorities in the House and Senate in November.
The vice president had earlier in the interview recalled the shock she felt when she discovered that on Friday, the Supreme Court had overturned fifty years of precedent.
Additionally, Harris rejected requests from progressive Democrats to establish abortion clinics on government property in states where the practice is either prohibited or will be illegal soon.
The vice president told CNN’s Dana Bash that when the news broke, she was on Air Force Two on route to a program on maternal health in Illinois.
In order to make sure that women receive the support they require both during and after pregnancy, Harris said, “We were going there to present a strategy based on the work we’ve been doing.”
“We expected the decision to be made shortly, but not at that time,” the statement reads.
I was astonished, Harris continued.
It’s one thing to know that something is going to happen. When it actually occurs, it’s a different story. And I just turned, which I found really unbelievable. As they actually did it, I couldn’t believe it.
“First off, if you are a parent of sons, do think about what this means for your son’s life, and what it will imply in terms of the choices he will have,” the statement begins.
While acknowledging that the White House was not considering pleas from progressives to open abortion facilities in red states, Harris reiterated the Biden administration’s commitment to doing everything in its power to defend access to abortion.
Can the administration increase access to or provide abortion services on federal property, i.e., federal property that may be located or near states that prohibit abortion? Dana Bash of CNN enquired.
We must do everything possible to empower women so that they can not only seek care where it is available, but also to receive it, Harris said.
“I think that what is most important right now is that we ensure that the restrictions that the states are trying to put up would prohibit a woman from exercising what we still maintain is her right,” Harris said.
The vice president responded that using federal property is “not right now what we are discussing” when pressed further.
In a speech she was forced to improvise at the last minute while traveling to Plainfield, Illinois, Harris warned it would result in a “health care disaster” just moments after the decision was made on Friday.
She moved her attention from the administration’s increased investment in maternal healthcare to her response to the opinion that eliminated privacy protections for women’s right to an abortion.
Here is what that ruling means: For almost 50 years, we have discussed what Roe v. Wade safeguards. We are limited to discussing what Roe v. Wade protected as of this very moment. Harris addressed the throng gathering at the Plainfield YMCA, saying, “Past tense.”
This is a catastrophe in health care, she declared.
Understand that millions of American women will go to bed tonight without having access to the medical and reproductive care they had this morning, Harris continued. Without having 50 years of the same reproductive or medical care as their mothers and grandmothers.
Shortly after President Joe Biden spoke to the nation about the choice and clearly blamed his predecessor Donald Trump, the vice president made his remarks.
Biden described it as “a profoundly serious occasion” and a “sad day for the court and the country” during remarks in the White House’s Cross Hall.
Today, the Supreme Court of the United States explicitly revoked a constitutional privilege it had previously upheld for the American people.
They just took it away, not limited it. According to Biden, it has never been done to a right that is so crucial to so many Americans. But they succeeded.
Let’s be clear: after Roe, the lives and health of women in this country are now in danger.
Biden emphasized how conservative judges, including those chosen by President Richard Nixon, determined the Roe case and defended the right to an abortion in other instances over the years.
The decision to tip the balances of justice and take away a basic right for women in this nation was made by three justices named by one president, Donald Trump, according to Biden.
The new state regulations, according to Biden, are “so harsh” that a woman would be forced to carry her attacker’s child or the “consequence of incest” child.
Biden referred to several of the 1800s laws that were cited in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, saying that “the court is actually pushing America back 150 years.”
It simply stuns me, he said.
Harris concurred with her number one, stating that the decision reverses the nation’s progress.
She stated in her remarks that “our nation’s strength has always been that we go forward.”
“Today, I call on everyone to unite in support of one of the most fundamental beliefs and principles that has persisted for generations… to uphold the right to privacy as well as independence, liberty, and self-determination.
Harris warned that other privacy concerns may be at risk in the future by pointing out that the ruling is not limited to the abortion debate.
The vice president added, “This opinion also suggests, when you read it, that abortion is not profoundly ingrained in our nation’s history.”
“Today’s judgement on that idea then puts into question other rights that we thought were resolved since it holds that it is not firmly rooted in our history. such as the right to interracial marriage, the right to same-sex marriage, and the access to birth control.
“The expansion of freedom has been the main desire of our country.” However, it is obvious that the spread of freedom is not inescapable. It is not something that happens by accident.
In his concurring opinion, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas argued that any future cases involving contraception and same-sex marriage that rely on the right to medical privacy that was recently rejected in Roe should also be reexamined.
The George Bush Sr.-appointed justice said, “[I]n future instances, we should review all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”
One of the instances Thomas is citing is Griswold v. Connecticut, a landmark decision from 1965 that safeguards married couples’ freedom to purchase and use contraceptives without interference from the government.
Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment were invoked in Obergefell v. Hodges, a 2015 ruling that granted same-sex couples the freedom to wed.