On Roe v. Wade, Kamala Harris Supports Every Woman’s Right To Choose

As the future of abortion rights at a federal level remains in question, Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Roe v. Wade must remain law of the land.

During the vice presidential debate Wednesday, Harris was asked of the potential for the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the landmark decision and if she would support her home state of California legalizing abortion rights at a state level.

In answering within her alotted time frame, Harris spent little time focused on the question specifically.

“I will always fight for a woman’s right to make a decision over her own body. That is her right, not Donald Trump’s," she said.

The majority of Americans support the legal right to an abortion. A 2019 poll conducted by Public Policy Polling on behalf of NARAL Pro-Choice America found that 88% percent of voters in Massachusetts believe it should be legal. Nationwide, a recent poll found 77% of Americans support abortion rights.

Harris expressed frustration with President Trump’s effort to fill the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s seat ahead of the November election.

“We’re literally in an election,” Harris said, adding, “Let the American people fill that seat in the White House and then the Supreme Court.”

The president announced Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court at the White House on Sept. 26.

During the debate, Vice President Mike Pence accused Democrats of attempting to vilify Barrett for her Catholic faith.

Like Barrett, Joe Biden is Catholic, which Harris noted. If elected, he would be the second practicing Catholic elected president, second only to President John F. Kennedy.

The vice president also accused his opponent of seeking to pack the Supreme Court, which some Democratic leaders in Congress have threatened.

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey has been vocal in his call for leaders to honor Ginsberg’s final wish and not fill the seat until after Election Day.

If Republican Senate leaders move forward with proceedings to fill the seat, Markey threatened to abolish the filibuster and add more justices to the Supreme Court.

“Mitch McConnell set the precedent,” Markey wrote on Twitter last month. “No Supreme Court vacancies filled in an election year. If he violates it, when Democrats control the Senate in the next Congress, we must abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court.”

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