Kamala Harris Says Birth Control, Same-Sex Marriage At Risk With Roe Decision
Vice President Kamala Harris blasted the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday for unleashing a “health care crisis” upon the American people by striking down Roe v. Wade, warning that several other rights once protected by the court are now in jeopardy.
“Millions of women in America will go to bed tonight without access to the health care and reproductive care that they had this morning, without access to the same health care or reproductive health care that their mothers and grandmothers had for 50 years,” Harris said in brief remarks at an event in Plainfield, Illinois.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris criticized the Supreme Court decision that overturns the Roe v. Wade ruling that guaranteed the right to an abortion, calling the moment a ‘health care crisis’ for women https://t.co/uIs67Oxnzspic.twitter.com/vUsOTFR0Ge
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 24, 2022
“This is the first time in the history of our nation that a constitutional right has been taken from the people of America,” she said of access to abortion, which multiple states banned within hours of the court’s decision. At least 26 states are expected to completely outlaw or restrict abortion soon with the court’s go-ahead.
Echoing many others, Harris said the court’s ruling “calls into question other rights that we thought were settled, such as the right to use birth control, the right to same-sex marriage, the right to interracial marriage.”
Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the court’s most conservative members and a staunch opponent of abortion rights, all but confirmed the coming reversals on Friday.
“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion, referring to landmark cases that affirmed the rights to contraception, same-sex sexual activity and same-sex marriage.
More on the Supreme Court abortion ruling:
Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade, dismantling decades-old precedent
Roe overturned: The fight begins
Abortion is now illegal in these states
Liberal justices dissent with “sorrow” for “millions of American women”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “We have to fill the streets”
Clarence Thomas: Cases protecting gay marriage and contraception should be next
Republicans make it clear they want to ban abortion nationwide
Donald Trump praises SCOTUS decision
West Coast states launch a plan to protect out-of-state abortion patients
Here’s how the world is reacting to the end of Roe
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.