Source: News & Observer
Vice President Kamala Harris was in Charlotte on June 24 to mark the one-year anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.
Harris told a crowd of supporters that the Biden administration will continue to stand up for abortion rights even as Republicans across the country and in North Carolina work to take away those rights, The News & Observer reported.
“We, all of us, are now called upon to advance the promise of freedom, including the freedom of every woman to make decisions about her own body,” Harris told the crowd.
The appearance from the vice president came just a few weeks after Republicans in the North Carolina General Assembly overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of an extreme bill that will ban most abortions after 12 weeks, or in many cases, even earlier or altogether.
“Next week, overruling the will of the people, North Carolina will be the latest state with an extreme ban, in spite of the best efforts of Gov. Roy Cooper,” Harris said. Harris promised that if Democrats in Congress pass a bill codifying abortion rights, President Joe Biden will sign it.
Harris didn’t just focus specifically on abortion, she and others at the event spoke more broadly about women’s health, with Harris focusing on North Carolina’s high maternal mortality rates – Black mothers (52.8) here are three times more likely than white mothers (17.3) to die in connection with childbirth and five times more likely than Hispanic mothers (10.7).
Harris also said that “extreme” laws across the U.S. over the last year have forced clinics to close, resulting in communities missing out on other services like routine check-ups, mammograms and other cancer screenings.
“The impact to women’s health issues broadly is very real,” the vice president said.
