On a warm summer day in 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. That ruling left over a third of women in the United States, as well as trans men and nonbinary people, without access to this basic medical procedure.
Ahead of the June 24 anniversary of the Court’s fateful decision, Vice President Kamala Harris invited Dr. Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer for reproductive health services of Planned Parenthood St. Louis Region, to her office in the West Wing of the White House to discuss the state of access to reproductive health care. Harris and McNicholas talked about the pressures now being put on providers in states with strict abortion bans like Missouri, where providing an abortion now comes with the risk of a felony charge and years in prison.
These kind of laws are “causing a lot of folks to really reconsider that we have to be vigilant and really understand all of the ramifications of this,” Harris said, “and to have a federal law that protects reproductive care in all 50 states.”
President Joe Biden and Harris have called on Congress to codify abortion rights into federal law.
Watch the full video of Harris and McNicholas’ conversation below.
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