Harris emerges as top abortion voice, warns of more fallout
During Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 Supreme Court confirmation hearings, then-California Sen. Kamala Harris asked the judge if he thought women’s privacy rights extended to choosing to have an abortion. Kavanaugh declined to answer.
With Justice Kavanaugh now part of the court majority that voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and the senator now the vice president, Harris is warning that the court’s decision could trigger some of the same far-reaching privacy limitations she warned of during those hearings.
Taking to the issue with a passion linked both to her personal and professional background, Harris has spent recent weeks sounding the alarm that upending Roe could create precedent for new restrictions on everything from contraception and in vitro fertilization to gay marriage and the right to vote.
Justice Clarence Thomas seemed to validate such concerns, writing in a concurring opinion to the larger ruling on Roe that the high court “should reconsider” past decisions on access to contraception and samesex marriage.
Harris has been a leading Biden administration voice on abortion rights since early May, when a leaked draft opinion previewed Roe v. Wade’s nullification. She was flying to Illinois for a maternal health event when the final decision was announced last week, and read it while still in the air — quickly shifting the focus of her planned remarks to the ruling.
The decision “calls into question other rights that we thought were settled, such as the right to use birth control, the right to samesex marriage, the right to interracial marriage,” Harris told her audience Friday at a suburban YMCA, adding that it would spark a “health care crisis.”
During an interview Monday with CNN, Harris said, “I definitely think this not over,” adding that, of what Thomas wrote, “I think he just said the quiet part out loud.”
Becoming a leading voice on abortion access could be a better fit for Harris after President Joe Biden tasked her with overseeing other thorny issues that haven’t gone well: immigration and expanding voting rights. Sweeping legislation on both issues has stalled in Congress, prompting some advocates to say the vice president and the White House should’ve done more.
Harris symbolically presiding over the Senate didn’t stop Republicans from blocking efforts to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law before the court’s ruling overturning it. But Democrats are hoping anger around the issue will energize their base for the November midterm elections, when the party faces steep headwinds.
Getting straight to the politics of the matter after the ruling was announced, Harris said, “You have the power to elect leaders who will defend and protect your rights. With your vote, you can act. And you have the final word.”
After a Texas law effectively banned abortion in the state in the fall, Harris met providers and patients, which her office believes is the first time abortion providers have visited the White House. She stressed then that gender discrimination persists, saying that “women’s full participation in our nation” was still only a goal, not a reality.
After the draft Supreme Court opinion leaked, the vice president convened a virtual discussion with doctors and nurses providing abortion care in states with strict restrictions and met with Democratic attorneys general from states supportive of reproductive rights.
Biden has also forcefully defended abortion rights and warned that other rights are now at risk. But as a observant Catholic, he hasn’t always had a strong record on the issue.
Harris, the first female vice president and California’s former top prosecutor, brings unique personal perspective and legal expertise to the issue.
“Seeing women fight on behalf of other women is just very true to the core of who she is,” said Jacqueline Ayers, senior vice president of policy, organizing, and campaigns at Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
But some abortion opponents argue that Harris has hurt her cause by equating abortion access with other, more routine medical care.
“She has become emblematic of the abortion absolutism on the other side,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which advocates for women who oppose abortion in politics.