Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) on Thursday lamented the previous day’s Supreme Court oral arguments about a Mississippi law – a case that Jayapal feared could lead to the overturning of the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade.
“It was a devastating hearing for millions of women across this country, for millions of people across this country who are watching the Supreme Court actually look like they are going to overturn Roe v. Wade and take us back into the days of back-alley abortions,” she said on MSNBC’s José Díaz-Balart Reports.
She continued:
This is personal to me. I am one of the one in four women in America who has had an abortion. It was a very difficult choice for me to make, but it was my choice, Jose, and that is what we need to preserve for every person across the country that has to be in that situation, but also I want to point out that if the Supreme Court is refusing to pay attention to precedent, in Roe v. Wade, then what does that mean for all the other landmark decisions on civil rights, on workers’ rights?Everything that the Supreme Court has taken up in the past, does that mean that those decisions also are subject to the political whim of essentially a politically appointed Supreme Court? That is extremely distressing as well and very dangerous. So this is dangerous for women across the country.Twenty states
that will likely, immediately, outlaw abortion if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade or, you know, dramatically rolls it back. So this is a terrible time, and women’s rage is going to be seen at the polling places if this happens. But it was not a good sign, the hearings yesterday.Watch above, via MSNBC.