In a speech Saturday marking the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, Vice President Kamala Harris condemned conservative justices for creating a "health care crisis in America."
“How dare they?” Harris, the first female vice president, asked a crowd in Charlotte, North Carolina.
She also criticized abortion bans that have been passed in several Republican-led states since the reversal of Roe. The politicians who created those laws “don’t even understand how a woman’s body actually works," Harris said as she vowed that the Biden administration will continue to fight for women's right to make their own choices.
“This fight is not only about people in one particular state; these extremists plan to take their agenda national. And that agenda, by the way, goes way beyond reproductive rights. A lot of these same folks attack the right to vote — that prevents the teaching of America’s history,” she said.
The event was one of several the White House has held this month to mark the anniversary of the high court's decision, putting a spotlight on an issue that is likely to dominate the 2024 election cycle.
President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden, Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, participated in a political event with reproductive rights groups Friday. In addition, Biden signed an executive order that seeks to protect and expand access to contraception, which advocates had feared Republicans would target next as they seek to impose more restrictions.
Three of the nation's leading reproductive rights groups — EMILYs List, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund — also endorsed the Biden-Harris 2024 presidential campaign Friday.
And last week, the White House hosted events with Democratic legislators from 41 states to discuss state-level attacks on reproductive rights.
Harris spoke in Charlotte exactly a year after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 conservative majority reversed the landmark 1973 ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion. The ruling last year proved to be one of the defining moments of the 2022 midterm elections, galvanizing key voting groups — especially women — in support of Democratic candidates.
Congressional Republicans and GOP presidential candidates have celebrated the anniversary, while Democrats in Congress are trying to find ways to protect abortion rights legislatively.
House Democrats, for example, have been trying to garner support for a discharge petition that would force a floor vote in the chamber, narrowly controlled by Republicans, on a bill to protect a person's right to end a pregnancy, as well as abortion providers. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Friday that they need only eight more members to sign on to the petition.
But as prospects of protecting abortion services are nearly impossible on Capitol Hill, the Biden administration has been trying to navigate ways to safeguard reproductive health care services.
Abortion rights advocates are in a legal battle over the abortion medication mifepristone, part of a two-drug regimen, to self-manage ending pregnancies. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana recently heard arguments in the case, but the appeals process could take months.
Advocates have had some success in court blocking or delaying implementing restrictions. A judge ruled Thursday that Wyoming's law to ban medication abortion would not take effect next month as planned to allow a lawsuit to advance.
Meanwhile, as Republicans continue to chip away at people's rights to end pregnancies, support for their efforts remains low. A new national NBC News poll found that about 6 in 10 voters remain opposed to the Supreme Court's ruling, while 36% approved of it.
