Vice President Kamala Harris compared abortion to slavery in a Monday address to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Harris claimed the U.S. has a “history of claiming ownership over human bodies” in an argument advocating for women to make decisions “about their own bodies.”
“It’s important to note that to support a woman’s ability, not her government, but her to make that decision does not require anyone to abandon their faith or their beliefs,” she said. “It just requires us to agree the government shouldn’t be making that decision for her. And think about it, for the first time in generations, the United States Supreme Court, the highest court of our land, the former court of Thurgood Marshall, took a constitutional right that had been recognized from the people of America, from the women of America.”
“We know, in NAACP, that our country has a history of claiming ownership over human bodies,” she continued. “And today, extremist so-called leaders are criminalizing doctors, punishing women from healthcare decisions for themselves. Personal decisions, that is her right to make in consultation with her doctor, her pastor, her priest, her rabbi, her loved ones. Not her government telling her what to do.”
The vice president claimed leaders arguing abortion is a state’s rights issue are the same ones stripping away voting rights in their states. (RELATED: ‘Government Can’t Interfere In Personal Decisions’: Kamala Harris Meets With Abortionists, Says Anti-Abortion Laws Mean ‘War’)
“And these so-called leaders claim that ‘well, you know, we just think that this is a decision that should be made by the folks in the states, people in the states can vote on this.’ But at this moment, many of these same so-called leaders are the same ones who are passing laws to restrict the ability of people to vote.”
Georgia passed the Republican-led “Election Integrity Act of 2021” to require Voter I.D. and ban soliciting by handing out food and water to voters. Democrats and critics have labeled the legislation “Jim Crow 2.0” in reference to the voter suppression of African Americans in the pre-Civil Rights era. Fact-checkers have debunked President Joe Biden’s claims that the law minimizes voting hours.
The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, handing the right to regulate abortion back to the states. Associate Justice Samuel Alito argued the majority opinion that there is no constitutional provision that protects a woman’s right to an abortion.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion.
The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, upheld Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban except in cases threatening the mother’s life or health. Thirteen states, including Missouri, Kentucky, and Louisiana, immediately enacted so-called “trigger laws” outlawing almost all abortions statewide.
Judges have imposed temporary bans on abortion restrictions in Louisiana, Kentucky, Florida and Texas.
