(FiveNation.com)- Vice President Kamala Harris made her first appearance on late-night TV this week, and she used her time on the “Late Night with Seth Meyers” program on NBC to lash out at the Supreme Court.
Harris, who appeared on the program Monday night, commented on her views about the Supreme Court as a way to urge American citizens to “speak” by voting in the upcoming midterm elections. She called the decision by the high court to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision from the 1970s a “travesty of justice.”
She added that she believed that conservative Justice Clarence Thomas said “the quiet part out loud” during his concurring opinion, as he suggested that his colleagues on the Supreme Court should revisit other major cases such as those revolving around contraception, gay relations and gay marriage.
Harris commented:
“The highest court in our land just took a constitutional right that had been recognized from the people of America, from the women of America.
“The significance of that is profound in terms of what it means for the rights of individuals and in particular, for the right of an individual to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do.”
The vice president went even further than that, though. She said that the rollback of federal abortion protections that occurred after the high court’s decision in the Dobbs case “affects all genders.” She opined:
“If you have a partner, if you have a sister, if you have an aunt, a mother, this affects you. Not to mention on the Dobbs decision when Justice Clarence Thomas said the quiet part out loud, which is that when they took the constitutional right from women on reproductive choice, that he said that in line, in terms of what might come next is your right to contraception. That will affect all genders.
“Your right to marry the person you love, same point … And for that reason, let’s take it seriously and let’s … speak with our vote and undo what I think is a great travesty of justice.”
Harris took to this national forum to project her feelings about the Supreme Court as a way to show just how important the upcoming midterm elections are. Her boss, President Joe Biden, is projecting the same message as often as he possibly can in the final few weeks before the election is held.
At stake in the midterm elections is the control of both the House and Senate. Democrats hold a very slight majority in both chambers of Congress right now, though Republicans are favored to retake control of at least one, if not both, chambers following the election.
What Harris said is that Democrats would need to win two additional seats in the Senate — as well as hold onto the majority in the House — for the president to be able to sign what’s called the Women’s Health Protection Act.
That would prohibit “governmental restrictions on the provision of, and access to, abortion services,” Harris said, essentially reinstating the protections that Roe used to provide.
