VP Harris said overturning Roe v. Wade is just another way the US tries 'to claim ownership over human bodies'
Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP
- Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday said the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling is "problematic."
- She said it is yet another example of how the US is "trying to claim ownership over human bodies."
- She said it is the government telling a person "what you should do with your body," Harris said.
Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday suggested the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is another example of the US "trying to claim ownership over human bodies."
"We have to recognize we're a nation that was founded on certain principles that are … grounded in the concept of freedom and liberty," Harris said, speaking during a chat with actress Keke Palmer at the Essence Festival in New Orleans.
"We also know we've had a history in this country of government trying to claim ownership over human bodies, and we had supposedly evolved from that time and that way of thinking," she continued. "So this is very problematic on so many levels, the impact that it is going to have on women without means."
She added, "The statement has been made that the government has a right to come in your home and tell you as a woman and as a family what you should do with your body."
She made these remarks about a week after the Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion a constitutional right nationwide.
The decision to overturn Roe v. Wade sparked protests nationwide. Since the decision was made public, a slew of prominent individuals from musician Jack White to lawmakers such as Ocasio-Cortez has blasted the ruling. Attorney General Merrick Garland condemned the court's decision, saying on Friday that it's a "devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States."
Since May, abortion-rights advocates have feared that the Supreme Court would strike down Roe v. Wade. The fears began when Politico published a leaked draft opinion in which Associate Justice Samuel Alito called the decision "egregiously wrong from the start."
By overturning Roe, the Supreme Court has put the question of the legality of abortion in the hands of individual state legislatures and has essentially made it illegal in at least 22 states to obtain an abortion. There are expected to be added restrictions in several others.