The way to ensure abortion rights throughout the United States is for voters to select in the midterm elections this November a "pro-choice Congress" and other officials at the local level who will guarantee these rights, Vice President Kamala Harris said on CBS News' "Face The Nation" in an interview aired on Sunday.
"We need to understand that states are passing laws because of what the Supreme Court has now allowed to happen ... [including] no exception [for abortions], even for rape or incest," Harris said.
"We're looking at elections coming up, in 120 something days. They're going to be about who serves in Congress, and we need a pro-choice Congress," the vice president added. "You don't have to advocate or believe that this is right for you or your family, but don't let the government make the decision for her family, whoever she may be. It means state offices, governors, secretaries of state, attorneys general. It means local races: Who's going to be your DA, who's going to be your sheriff, enforcing laws that are being passed to criminalize medical health providers and maybe even the women who seek the service?
Asked if the Democrats should have done more to enshrine the right to abortion into federal law when the party controlled both chambers of Congress, Harris said, "We certainly believe that certain issues are just settled ... And that's why I do believe that we are living, sadly, in real unsettled times."
President Joe Biden signed a limited executive order on Friday in an attempt to protect access to reproductive health services by increasing access to emergency contraception and boosting legal services to help people who cross state lines to seek an abortion, but The Guardian pointed out that many abortion advocates and progressive Democrats said the president's actions do not go far enough.
Harris stressed on "Face The Nation" that she had never believed assurances made by Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh when they sought Senate approval for their appointment to the Supreme Court that they respected the precedence of the Roe v. Wade decision that had enshrined abortion as a constitutional right since 1973.
"I start from the point of experience of having served in the Senate," Harris said. "I never believed them. I didn't believe them. So I voted against."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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