Vice President Kamala Harris railed against efforts in Washington and in Republican-led states to restrict abortion on what would have been the 50th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, invoking fundamental American values such as freedom to make the case for protecting abortion access despite the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate constitutional protections for it.
Leading the administration’s response on commemorating Roe on Sunday, Harris methodically detailed fights throughout history for certain liberties, such as civil rights and the right to vote for women, and tied that to access for abortion, which Harris called the “fundamental, constitutional, right of a woman to make decisions about her own body.”
“Can we truly be free if families cannot make intimate decisions about the course of their own lives?And can we truly be free if so-called leaders claim to be quote, I quote, on the vanguard of freedom while they dare to restrict the rights of the American people and attack the very foundations of freedom?”
Harris said in a fiery speech
Women’s marches demanding the protection of abortion rights were set to draw thousands of people across the country on Sunday, the 50th anniversary of the now-overturned Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that established a federal right to an abortion.
The decision for Harris to speak in Tallahassee, the state capital, reflects how the battle lines have shifted since last summer.
Now that there’s no more national right to abortion, battles over the issue w ill play out in individual statehouses rather than in the halls of Congress or before the Supreme Court.
White House officials this past week convened top lawmakers from eight states to discuss pending legislation.
