This was the speech I really needed to hear right now: Vice President Kamala Harris accusing Republicans of attacking women’s rights and calling for Americans who support “self-determination” to stand with Democrats in the face of the likely overturning of Roe v. Wade. Via Bloomberg:
In her address, which was just over nine minutes long, Harris argued that a court decision to end the national right to abortion would open the door to the justices stripping away other rights, including same-sex marriage. She drew sharp contrasts with Republicans, who she said sought to limit the freedom of women and other Americans.
“If the court overturns Roe v. Wade, it will be a direct assault on freedom, on the fundamental rights of self-determination to which all Americans are entitled,” she said.
“How dare they?” she said of Republicans who support the end of Roe. “How dare they tell a woman what she can do and cannot do with her own body? How dare they? How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future? How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms?”
She pointed out the threat to gay marriage and the use of contraception (in 2022, we're actually talking about the right to use contraception?), both likely targets of the same legal reasoning outlined.
“Some Republican leaders, they want to take us back to a time before Roe v. Wade, to a time before Obergefell v. Hodges, back to a time before Griswold v. Connecticut,” Harris said, a reference to the 2015 court decision that legalized gay marriage nationwide and the 1965 ruling that found couples enjoyed a right to privacy in their contraception choices.
“We’re not going back. We are not going back,” the vice president declared.
Her speech represented the most robust defense of abortion rights so far from President Joe Biden’s administration since the publication of a leaked draft Supreme Court ruling that would overturn Roe. The draft, written by Justice Samuel Alito, was published by Politico, which reported that five justices -- all appointed by Republican presidents -- had already voted to overturn the 1973 abortion ruling.
