Vice President Kamala Harris is leading a charge using war rhetoric about abortion rights. She spoke with a group of abortion providers this week and told them they are on “the front lines” in a “war on women’s rights.”
The vice president led a virtual meeting with both medical professionals and reproductive rights advocates who are working in states that have restrictive abortion laws. Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas are some of the states that were represented.
The meeting was scheduled after the Supreme Court’s opinion was leaked that indicated the High Court was ready to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion across the nation.
Harris declared, “We cannot deny that this decision will have real and immediate effects on women around our country. So, I am here today, joined by doctors, nurses and leading advocates, who are on the front lines against this war on women’s rights.”
The vice president made it clear that her remarks were being made less than an hour after Oklahoma approved legislation that would outlaw all abortions except in cases where the mother’s life was in danger or the pregnancy was a result of a rape that was reported to authorities.
“Just half an hour ago in Oklahoma, the state legislature passed one of the most extreme abortion bans in the country — a ban that would outlaw abortion from the moment of fertilization. Now think about that for a second, from the moment of fertilization. It’s outrageous and it’s just the latest in a series of extreme laws around the country,” Harris said.
President Biden’s administration has criticized the efforts to restrict abortion, but they just can’t seem to find a way to stop states from establishing laws like the one in Oklahoma.
Last week, a vote in the Senate failed as they tried to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act. GOP senators were joined by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin from West Virginia to block the bill that would have protected abortion rights across the nation.
The only recourse Harris and Biden seem to have is to urge voters to elect more pro-abortion lawmakers. They are using some scare tactics to do this. Vice President Harris warned people that other rights could be at risk if the Supreme Court follows through on Roe v. Wade. She mentioned the use of contraception and the right to marry regardless of race or sexual orientation.
“Overturning Roe opens the door to restricting those rights. It would be a direct assault on the fundamental right of self-determination — to live and love without interference from the government,” Harris threatened.
The law now on the books in Oklahoma bans abortion of a human fetus or embryo in any stage of gestation from fertilization until birth. The sponsor of the bill was GOP state Rep. Wendy Stearman. Like the bill in Texas, it allows for private lawsuits to enforce the ban with legal judgments up to $10,000 for anyone who “aid or abet” an abortion.
Ironically, the Biden administration attempted to force nearly all public and private-sector workers to have a COVID-19 vaccine shot. But both Harris and Biden have framed this abortion rights debate as a matter of the autonomy of one’s body and civil liberties. Harris actually just said, “This is about our future as a nation, about whether we live in a country where the government can interfere in personal decisions.”
Where was that value last year? The hypocrisy is appalling. The midterms can’t come fast enough.
