Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said Monday on “MSNBC’s Reports” that state legislators who attempt to ban interstate travel for abortion would be harkening back to the days of slavery.
Johnson said, “Well, look, I mean, we are greatly appreciative of the White House and the administration doing as much as they can in every agency to be as creative as possible to get people the care they need and get people to care. We have seen such extreme laws being introduced in states like Missouri and Louisiana, criminalizing not just tele-medication abortion but also things like contraception, IUDs, perhaps IVFs, and that idea you couldn’t travel across your own state boundary is just such a bizarre construct, right? It just, obviously, harkens back to slavery. So, we are incredibly concerned about what might happen, and to have the White House and the administration thinking about all of the ways to get care to people is so important.”
She added, “We will continue to fight state by state through litigation, through some of these trigger laws, through proactive legislation, through ballot initiatives. This is now about direct democracy in each state that is actively trying to overturn our right to abortion in those states. That’s essentially when you lose the federal protection of the Constitution, you have to fight your way back in state by state, and that is what our intent is, to make sure that no one can stay neutral on this. No politician, no corporation. Everyone has to weigh in here. Because we believe, as you just demonstrated, the majority of people support having access to abortion being the law of the land, certainly the law in their states, and we are going to fight to make that the case.”
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