Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday delivered the Biden administration’s most forceful defense of reproductive rights since POLITICO reported on a draft majority opinion showing the Supreme Court has voted to strike down Roe v. Wade.
“Some Republican leaders are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women. How dare they? How dare they tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body?” said Harris, speaking at an EMILY’s List conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington. “How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future? How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms?”
Harris had been scheduled to speak at the gala before news emerged of the court’s draft ruling. But after the disclosure, both the event and her speech took on heightened urgency. A White House official told POLITICO the speech went through multiple revisions on Tuesday in preparation for the spotlight.
The justices’ draft opinion could hold major ramifications as voters head to the polls for primaries and then again in November — elections that will determine which party holds power, from state legislatures to governors’ mansions to the U.S. Congress. Most voters back abortion rights, according to a December 2021 POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. While 52 percent of respondents said abortion should remain legal in most or all cases, 36 percent said abortion should be banned in most or all cases. And 45 percent said Roe should not be overturned, compared with 24 percent who said it should be.
Harris also warned that the threat doesn’t stop with abortion rights.
“At its core, Roe recognizes the fundamental right to privacy,” she said on Tuesday. “Think about that for a minute. When the right to privacy is attacked, anyone in our country may face a future where the government can interfere in their personal decisions. Not just women. Anyone.”
That line from Harris’ speech is in sync with what President Joe Biden told reporters on Tuesday, saying that “the idea we’re letting the states make those decisions, localities make those decisions, would be a fundamental shift in what we’ve done. It goes far beyond the concern of whether or not there is the right to choose.”
The president added that a final ruling striking down Roe from the Supreme Court would affect “other basic rights: the right to marry, the right to determine a whole range of things. A number of the members of the court have not acknowledged that there is a right to privacy in our Constitution.”
Administration officials and the president have been reticent on whether the White House would call for a carve-out in the filibuster to codify abortion rights into law. A bill that has passed the House would do just that. But it failed in the Senate, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) reaffirmed on Tuesday that he would not support nixing the filibuster for any legislation.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told PBS on Tuesday night that the Senate would be voting on a bill.
“Well, obviously, what we’re going to do next week is have a vote on this so everyone in the country knows where their senator stands,” Murray said. “Who is your voice? What are they saying? So that when this fall, we have elections, people will have an opportunity to know where their elected official stands. And I am calling for our country to wake up and say, if you want to make sure that this is your decision, not a politician’s decision. That when it’s your health care at stake, it is your decision.”
Protecting reproductive rights is an issue Harris has been working on and speaking out on since her time in the Senate. And as a presidential candidate, she criticized the lack of discussion on abortion rights during the primary debates.
After her speech on Tuesday, it’s expected that the vice president will continue to be a main voice of the administration on the issue.
“She’s going to talk about it as appropriate,” a White House official said. “It’s something that she feels very strongly about.”
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