(Daily Mail) Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are both calling for Democrats to take extreme measures to protect abortion rights after the reversal of Roe vs. Wade, but Vice President Kamala Harris signaled the Biden administration is not considering such action at the moment.
Both Warren and Ocasio-Cortez, Democrats from Massachusetts and New York respectively, lobbied for the administration to set up what they called ’emergency abortion clinics’ on federal lands.
Warren, speaking on ABC’s This Week, said Biden should ‘make abortion as available as possible with the tools he has, including medication abortion, including using federal lands as a place where abortions can occur.’
Ocasio-Cortez echoed these requests at a rally in New York City’s Union Square, calling federal abortion clinics ‘the babiest of baby steps.’
However, when asked about the possibility of doing so, Vice President Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash that it was unlikely.
I think that what is most important right now is that we ensure that the restrictions the states are trying to put up that would prohibit a woman from exercising what we still maintain is her right, that we do everything that we can to empower women to not only seek but receive the care where it is available.
When pushed further by Bash, Harris left the possibility open but seemed quick to pivot to suggest that it might not be in Democrats best electoral interests ahead of the midterms.
‘It’s not right now what we are discussing but I will say that when I think about what is happening in terms of the states, we have to also recognize that we are 130-odd days away from an election, which is gonna include Senate races. The court has acted, now Congress needs to act.’
She specifically cited races in Georgia, North Carolina and Colorado as places where Dems could either hold or make gains to their tiny Senate majority (a 50-50 tie in which Harris is entitled to the tie-breaking vote) that would allow them to codify Roe into law.
When asked what the Biden administration can do, Harris suggested they will expand access to abortion medication.
