US Vice President Kamala Harris said in Florida that the Supreme Court in 2022 took away women’s “fundamental constitutional right” to decide over their own bodies, but President Joe Biden’s administration is fighting to guarantee it and promote a law that protects it.
“No one can tell people what to do with their own bodies,” Harris stressed at an event in Tallahassee, Florida, marking the 50th anniversary of the US Supreme Court’s 1973 abortion rights decision. .
The vice president spoke of the reversal of the same court’s decision last June as a deprivation of rights in a country whose constitution recognizes freedom and the pursuit of happiness as fundamental values.
“How can you be free if a woman cannot decide, if a doctor cannot manage his patient, and if a man cannot direct the course of his life?” – he thought.
The vice president invited all Americans to join the fight to preserve reproductive rights and highlighted new measures taken by the government to guarantee the availability of abortion pills by doctors in certified pharmacies across the country.
Harris lashed out at those who “call themselves leaders,” referring to governors who limit women’s rights to make decisions about their pregnancies and penalize health professionals for caring for them, even with prison terms.
Speaking to a mostly female audience that rose early in the morning to attend the event at the Moon Concert Hall, he said Americans are worried about what could happen after abortion laws are passed in Republican-controlled states.
New dimensions
Joe Biden is considering new measures to protect legal access to abortion drugs amid barriers that have arisen since the Supreme Court struck down federal abortion rights protections last June, the White House said this week.
Biden is expected to sign an order this Monday for Health Secretary Xavier Becerra to establish the necessary measures to make abortion pills available at pharmacies across the country “without threat or violence.” The approval comes on the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (1973), which upheld this right in the United States but was overturned last June.
The decision was announced this week by Harris during a memorial march in Tallahassee, Florida, one of the states leading the attack in the US to further restrict abortion rights, which are no longer guaranteed at the national level and depend on each state government.
The White House emphasized that the president “has long made it clear that people should have access to reproductive services without harassment, threats or violence” and that “pharmacies should be treated no differently.”
Kamala Harris in Florida
Although the anniversary of V. Wade has been celebrated in many marches across the country — especially since Donald Trump took the White House in 2017 — and the Biden administration wanted Vice President Harris to be in Florida. There, Gov. Ron DeSantis approved laws restricting reproductive rights even before the Supreme Court overturned the landmark ruling.
A month after the court’s decision, a law promoted by DeSantis in Florida went down. Since then, the period for legal abortion has been reduced from 24 to 15 weeks, and there are no exceptions for pregnancies due to rape or incest.
Florida’s Republican lawmakers have already announced plans to further tighten the timelines and requirements for legal abortion. DeSantis has not yet commented on the vice president’s visit, which local media are calling a “challenge” to him by the Biden administration.
The governor posted a message on Twitter last Thursday announcing that he would participate in the March for Life, which would be held on Friday, as it is every year, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling by abortion opponents. Thank you for being a voice without a voice,” wrote the governor to the participants of the rally.
Consequences of the Supreme Court decision
Planned Parenthood, the largest network of reproductive services clinics in the US, maintains that 18 states have banned or severely restricted abortion, and in 13 of them access to this service is virtually impossible, although there are exceptions.
In the United States, the abortion pill Mifepristone is responsible for the “majority” of voluntary terminations of pregnancy across the country, according to the White House, which ensures that its new measures are against barriers that some states have introduced to prevent women. Access to abortion pills and that pharmacies offer them.
Source: El Diario
