Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday excoriated the Supreme Court’s recent decision peel to back five decades of federal abortion protections, calling its precedent-busting shift a “health care crisis” during a visit to her old Bay Area stomping grounds.
Appearing beside nearly 30 California lawmakers and abortion advocates, Harris painted a bleak outlook for much of the nation after the Supreme Court reversed its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and shifted the decision of whether to allow abortions to each individual state. And she decried “extremist” leaders in other states who are using the court’s decision to pass bans on abortions — even in cases of rape or incest — as “designed to criminalize health care providers.”
“But not in California,” Harris added. “Here we have leaders who understand the importance of the principles upon which our nation was founded, which are the principles of freedom and liberty.” She added that in this state, “we understand one does not have to abandon their faith or their beliefs to believe that the government should not be making that decision for somebody else.”
Harris’ remarks came during her ongoing nationwide tour on reproductive rights — a tactic that aims to rally Democrats around the issue of abortion access ahead of the November midterm elections. In stops across 18 other states, including Florida, Nevada and North Carolina, Harris has extolled the need for safe and easy access to abortion. Often, she’s framed the issue as a crisis that cuts against the nation’s principles of freedom and liberty.
In appearing in San Francisco — a place where she once served as district attorney, across the Bay from her hometown city of Oakland — Harris sought to ensure that California remains a save haven for abortion rights, even as many other states outlaw the procedure.
The visit comes on the heels of a head-turning vote earlier this month by Kansans that rejected an amendment to their state’s constitution, which would have ended the constitutional right to an abortion in the Sunflower State. Many political observers say the move signaled an unexpected opening for Democrats to capitalize upon in the upcoming midterm elections — contests that, until just a couple weeks ago, appeared to lean heavily in Republicans’ favor.
Whether that momentum carries into November remains unclear.
The broad unpopularity of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade could be a potential benefit for Democrats in November, said Jack Citrin, a UC Berkeley political science professor. For years, polls have routinely shown that a significant majority of Americans back women’s right to access abortions.
The question is: Where will the issue rank in terms of other pressing concerns facing voters, namely inflation and the economy? It’s a particularly difficult question to answer, Citrin said: Kansans were only voting on one issue – as opposed to a loaded ballot of candidate races and tax questions.
“Is it (abortion) most prominent in people’s minds? So far, it’s not high up on the list, because inflation and the economy dominate everything now,” Citrin said. “But still, it could be kind of a wedge issue.”
“Will it be significant or not? It’s guesswork at this point,” he added.
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, for example, found that reproductive rights rose in importance for many voting blocks – particularly women ages 18 to 49. Still, it lagged behind inflation and gas prices, two issues that have often served as bellwethers in national elections.
Shortly after Harris’ visit, the Republican National Committee issued a statement hitting back at Harris’ statements – mocking her lagging approval rating in California while suggesting she spend more time highlighting economic issues.
“The Vice President is in the Bay Area today to fearmonger with legislators about Democrats’ extreme abortion policies,” the statement said.
At least 14 states have moved to tighten or outright ban access to abortion since the Supreme Court’s ruling in late June, according to the New York Times. Most of those states are in the South and Midwest, where Republican governors have tried for decades to restrict access to the procedure.
California ranks as among the most accessible states for people seeking abortions. The state enshrined women’s the right to access an abortion in its constitution decades ago — protections that, experts say, could lead to an influx of women into California from other states where access is crumbling.
Already, some Planned Parenthood clinics have seen an increase in people arriving from other states and seeking abortions, said Gilda Gonzales, CEO of Planned Parenthood Northern Califonria.
On Thursday, California Sen. Toni Atkins touted that more than a dozen pieces of legislation had been introduced during the current legislative session aimed at expanding access to abortion across the state. They include bills to cut down on out-of-pocket costs for abortions and allow more nurse practitioners to provide abortion services.
On Thursday, Harris praised those moves as a model for other states to follow.
“We here trust women, we trust people to know what’s in their own best interest, as opposed to having their government tell them what’s in their best interest,” Harris said.