House speaker Nancy Pelosi has claimed that former president Donald Trump’s Supreme Court appointees have made the bench “dangerous to the freedoms” of the country.
She criticised the judges as the court prepares to issue a ruling that could end decades of constitutional protections for abortion care and trigger a wave of laws making abortion illegal in roughly half the US.
Abortion rights have taken the centre stage in the US in the wake of a leaked draft opinion from the conservative-majority Supreme Court to overturn the landmark 1973 decision in Roe v Wade.
“Who would have ever suspected that a creature like Donald Trump would become president of the United States, waving a list of judges that he would appoint, therefore getting the support of the far-right and appointing those anti-freedom justices to the court,” she said in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union.
Ms Pelosi had been asked if conservatives had “played the long game” when it came to repealing abortion rights. “This is not about the long game,” Ms Pelosi said. “We played a long game... we won Roe v Wade a long time ago. We voted to protect it over time,” the House speaker added.
“We have democratically elected a House of Representatives that is pro-choice.”
Ms Pelosi said that the problem was in believing that the conservative judges Mr Trump added to the court, including Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, would abide by the settled law instead of seeking to rewrite history.
“Let’s not take our eye off the ball. The ball is this court, which is dangerous to the freedoms of our country,” she said.
“Beware in terms of marriage equality and other aspects. Let’s not waste our time on that,” she added. “The fact is... this is a dangerous court to families and freedom in our country,” she added.
Ms Pelosi said that the time was right to mobilise on the issue instead of waiting for the midterm elections in November. “And that is why people have to mobilise. My saying is we don’t agonise we organise. We go out there and make sure people know that elections have consequences.”
She was speaking a day after national abortion rights groups helped organise rallies in nearly 400 cities and towns, from Cleveland to Oklahoma City and throughout the South from Nashville to Atlanta and New Orleans and across Florida, drawing huge crowds outside state capitols and in city centres in states poised to severely restrict or outlaw abortion access.
Nationwide “Bans Off Our Bodies” rallies brought massive crowds of abortion rights advocates to Washington DC and the streets of New York City, Los Angeles, Austin, Texas and city centres across the US on Saturday.
The rallies demanded support for abortion funds, reproductive health groups, abortion providers, and state- and federal-level protections for abortion care.
