President Biden said Tuesday he doesn’t want a conservative Supreme Court majority to result in personal freedoms being decided by “the whims of the public” in local communities.
“They refuse to acknowledge there’s a right to privacy,” Mr. Biden said of conservative justices. “There are so many fundamental rights that are affected by that, and I’m not prepared to leave that to the whims of the public at the moment in local areas.”
The president was responding to a question about whether there should be changes made in the high court in light of a leaked draft of an imminent Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion. Mr. Biden told reporters that if the opinion is finalized in its draft form, it would be a “radical” change.
“It basically says all the decisions relating to your private life, who you marry, whether or not you decide to conceive a child or not, whether or not you can have an abortion, a range of other decisions,” the president said. “It’s a fundamental shift in American jurisprudence. And the idea we’re letting the states make those decisions … would be a fundamental shift in what we’ve done.”
Vice President Kamala Harris said the draft ruling shows that Republicans are anti-woman.
“Opponents of Roe want to punish women and take away their rights to make decisions about their own bodies,” the vice president said in a statement. “Republican legislators in states across the country are weaponizing the use of the law against women.”
She said the rights of all Americans “are at risk.”
“If the right to privacy is weakened, every person could face a future in which the government can potentially interfere in the personal decisions you make about your life,” Ms. Harris said. “This is the time to fight for women and for our country with everything we have.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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