Reminiscent of young environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s bratty “How dare you!” denunciation of world leaders, Vice President Kamala Harris railed against Republican leaders who she claimed are trying to “weaponize” the law against women on Tuesday evening.
Speaking at an event for EMILY’s List, a political action committee that works to elect pro-abortion female candidates, Harris declared war on the Supreme Court over a draft opinion showing that a majority of justices are prepared to strike down the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
The document apparently was leaked to Politico, which reported on it Monday night. Harris’ speech had been scheduled prior to the report.
In her address, she expanded upon a brief statement she had released earlier in the day framing the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a threat to “the rights of all Americans.”
“Women’s rights in America are under attack,” the vice president began.
“Roe v. Wade, in its power, has protected a woman’s right — her right — to make decisions about her own body for nearly half a century,” she said.
“If the court overturns Roe v. Wade, it will be a direct assault on freedom — on the fundamental right of self-determination to which all Americans are entitled.”
“Women in almost half the country could see their access to abortion severely limited,” Harris said. “In 13 of those states, women would lose access to abortion immediately and outright.”
“Those Republican leaders who are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women,” she said, her anger rising, “Well we say, how dare they! How dare they tell a woman what she can do and cannot do with her own body. How dare they! How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future! How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms.”
“They want to ban abortion in every state, they want to bully anyone who seeks or provides reproductive health care, and they want to criminalize and punish women for making these decisions,” the vice president said.
“At its core, Roe recognizes the fundamental right to privacy,” she said. “Think about that for a moment. When the right to privacy is attacked, anyone in our country may face a future where the government can interfere with their personal decisions. Not just women. Anyone.”
The irony is rich.
“And it has never been more clear which party wants to expand our rights and which party wants to restrict them,” Harris said. “It has never been more clear which party wants to lead us forward and which party wants to push us back. You know, some Republican leaders, they want to take us back to a time before Roe v. Wade. …
“But we’re not going back. We are not going back!”
Although the party that controls the White House typically loses seats in Congress during the midterm elections, rarely has a party faced such dismal prospects as the Democrats do this year.
News of the leak has provided a lifeline for the embattled administration, and it has run with it. And Harris’ speech provided some clues to the planned strategy.
First, this story immediately diverted attention from record-high inflation, a looming recession, a spike in crime, the crisis at our southern border, allegations of the president’s potential involvement in his son’s overseas business affairs and so much more.
It’s also given them a club with which to bludgeon Republicans, a chance to go on the offense. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, the legality of abortions will be left to the states, as it should be in a federal system. But Harris has portrayed it as an attack on a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.
Additionally, aside from the obvious fact that Democrats’ vaccine mandates are an attack on all Americans’ right to make decisions about their own bodies, Harris framed this as a nationwide ban on abortion. As usual, she’s not being truthful.
Women who want abortions will still have access to them in roughly half of the states.
Harris has set this up as an attack on rights, which it is not, and she’s vowing to “fight” against it. Channeling Patrick Henry, she concludes her remarks with a rallying cry, “Let us fight for our country and for the principles upon which it was founded, and let us fight with everything we have got.”
Since when was abortion one of the “principles” upon which America was founded? Abortion has never been a constitutional right.
The White House has seized this opportunity because Democrats are desperate. They’ve got nothing else. Just as despair was setting in, along came this extraordinary gift to rally the base.
Conspicuously missing from Harris’ speech was the outrageousness of the leak itself.
I’d like to believe the truth will prevail, but this party is practiced in the art of deception. They’ve learned from experience that if they can keep their phony narrative alive through the midterms, they might be able to stem some of the losses they know are coming.
This is shameless and disrespectful to our apolitical court system. If the leak itself wasn’t enough to drag the Supreme Court down, the White House is going full tilt to turn this into a major political battle with the court itself at the center.
Since the Democrats’ dream of packing the court didn’t pan out, they’ll have to settle for delegitimizing it. It won’t be as easy as they think.
But for them, it’s game on.