US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the American Rescue Plan Workforce Development Summit in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, July 13, 2022.
Jemal Countess | UPI | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“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 away a constitutional right, that had been recognized, from the people of America, from the women of America,” Harris said.
“We know, NAACP, that our country has a history of claiming ownership over human bodies,” Harris said to applause.
“And today, extremists, so-called leaders are criminalizing doctors and punishing women for making health-care decisions for themselves — personal decisions that it 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,” she added.
“And these so-called leaders — so-called — 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,'” the vice president said. “Right? But at this moment, many of those same so-called leaders are the same ones who are passing laws to restrict the ability of people to vote.”
At a briefing later Monday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she had not see Harris’s comment.
But Jean-Pierre also said, “She is correct. Today’s decisions are criminalizing doctors and essentially taking the rights away from women, taking the freedom away from women. Really taking away people’s privacy. “
“That does matter. And that is important,” the spokeswoman said.
