After a leaked draft opinion showed the Supreme Court poised to overturn the landmark abortion protections of Roe v. Wade, Vice President Kamala Harris said it was “time to fight for women.”
In a statement on Wednesday — a day after Politico first reported (and the Supreme Court later confirmed) the draft opinion — Harris wrote that “opponents of Roe want to punish women and take away their rights to make decisions about their own bodies.”
“Republican legislators in states across the country are weaponizing the use of the law against women,” the vice president said, warning that not only the right to abortion but the “right to privacy” for all Americans would be “weakened” if the majority opinion leaked in the draft were to hold.
“This is the time to fight for women and for our country with everything we have,” Harris said.
Republicans have long been making efforts to restrict abortion across the country.
Right now, 26 states are likely or almost certain to ban abortion in the case of a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe, according to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute.
It’s worth noting that the draft decision is not final and that abortion remains legal in all 50 states for now.
In response to the draft leak, progressive Democratic lawmakers have been calling for the Senate to abolish the filibuster to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would guarantee access to abortion care nationwide.
“We know that our most vulnerable communities will bear the disproportionate brunt of any decision to restrict and deny access to abortion care—particularly Black, brown, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+ and low-income people,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) said in a statement that called for codifying abortion protections in federal law. “We must legislate as if our lives depend on it, because they do.”