Vice President Kamala Harris has triggered backlash online after seeming to liken the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade - the landmark 1973 ruling that had legalized abortion nationwide for almost 50 years - to slavery.
“We have to recognize we're a nation that was founded on certain principles that are — that are grounded in the concept of freedom and liberty. We also know that we've had a history in this country of government trying to claim ownership over human bodies. And we had supposedly evolved from that time and that way of thinking. So this is very problematic on so many levels,” Harris said while addressing the crowd at the Essence Festival in New Orleans on Saturday.
The annual music festival was started in 1995, originally as a one-off event to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Essence, a magazine aimed primarily towards African-American women.
Although Harris did not explicitly reference slavery, she was believed to have been indicating to the United States' grim history of legally enslaving human beings, mainly Africans and African Americans.
“Millions of women in America will go to bed tonight without access to the healthcare and reproductive care that they had this morning… Without access to the same healthcare or reproductive healthcare that their mothers and grandmothers had for 50 years. Today's decision on that theory, then, calls into question other rights that we thought were settled,” the VP added.
Her remarks were made after the highest court in the country overturned the 1973 landmark ruling on 24 June that "protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction.”
Users online immediately responded to the Vice President’s remarks, slamming Harris’s stance.
Some internet users reminded Kamala Harris of her heritage, as she is the daughter of an Indian-American mother and a Jamaican-American father.
This comes as mass demonstrations have swept the US following the ruling that now grants states the authority to ban or restrict abortions. So-called trigger laws - bans designed to take effect with the overturning of Roe v. Wade – have been rendered enforceable in some states following the US Supreme Court's ruling, while in others, the bans await official action.
Restrictive abortion laws are in effect in at least four states: Arkansas, Missouri, South Dakota and Wisconsin, according to CNN.
Still awaiting state action for the governor to certify the Supreme Court's decision are Wyoming, North Dakota, Idaho, Tennessee and Texas. In over a dozen states, legal fights are underway over abortion bans and limits on the procedure.
In the immediate aftermath of the ruling, Democrats vowed to pass a federal law enshrining the right for abortions should they sweep the midterm November elections.