Vice President Kamala Harris plans to visit Charlotte, North Carolina, next week to mark the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a 1973 landmark case that federally protected abortion rights, White House officials told McClatchy on Thursday.
And they added that it’s not a coincidence that Harris chose to visit North Carolina just days before new abortion restrictions go into effect on July 1.
North Carolina Republican legislators overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of their 12-week abortion ban last month. The ban offers some exceptions for rape and incest and “life-limiting” fetal anomalies, The News & Observer previously reported. There are no restrictions if a mother’s life is in danger.
The veto override was made possible by Rep. Tricia Cotham, a lawmaker who lives just outside Charlotte, who changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican earlier this year, giving Republicans a supermajority. Prior to blindsiding Democrats with a party change, Cotham was perhaps best known for a speech she made on the House floor about an abortion she had when she was younger, a claim that she is now walking back.
Protecting reproductive rights
White House officials said Harris will use her visit to Charlotte on June 24 — the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision — to draw attention to Republicans trying to push legislation that would ban abortions. She will also use it as an opportunity to rally supporters, advocates and community leaders in North Carolina around the fight for reproductive rights.
Harris wants to put back in place law that would protect reproductive rights nationally.
In advocating for that, White House officials said, she has brought together 50 groups of leaders in 16 states on the front lines of the issue, and also convened 250 state lawmakers from 28 states with health care providers, constitutional law experts, state attorneys general, students, advocates and leaders in faith, disability rights and higher education. She’s also led cabinet secretaries from across the government to implement a response to Dobbs.
Rep. Kathy Manning, a Democrat from Greensboro, this week sponsored a bill that would federally protect a person’s right to contraception.
On Tuesday, Harris will sit down with MSNBC’s Joy Reid for a roundtable on the impact the Supreme Court’s decision has had on Americans in a televised program that will air at 7 p.m.
Visit from Biden
North Carolina has been seeing a lot more of the Biden administration in recent weeks.
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden visited Eastern North Carolina on June 9 to highlight initiatives like helping students connect with good-paying jobs and programs for military families.
Biden’s reelection campaign, which includes Harris as his running mate, has made it known it plans to fully invest in North Carolina as a battleground state.
This is the administration’s third visit to the state since March.
