Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday mourned the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, speaking after President Joe Biden addressed the country.
“Today. As of right now. As of this minute. We can only talk about what Roe v. Wade protected. Past tense,” Harris said.
The vice president spoke about the Roe v. Wade decision in Illinois, where she had previously planned to give a speech about maternal health.
Instead, she spoke about abortion rights, noting that for over 50 years, mothers had the right to choose to abort their children. She appeared horrified that the Supreme Court had taken that right away.
Harris sharply disagreed with the court’s opinion that abortion was “not deeply rooted in our history.”
“Today’s decision on that theory then calls into question other rights that we thought were settled,” she said.
She warned that other rights guaranteed by the court such as same-sex marriage, contraception, and interracial marriage were threatened by the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“The great aspiration of our nation has been to expand freedom,” she said. “But the expansion of freedom clearly is not inevitable.”
She called for all abortion supporters to rally and elect Democrats and other pro-abortion politicians to enshrine abortion rights into federal law.
“Today I invite all people to stand together in defense of one of the most fundamental ideals and principles for generations, for centuries, I believe we had held dear, which is that fundamental principle of the importance of liberty,” she said.