Former vice president Mike Pence criticised Vice President Kamala Harris for her remarks that slammed Republicans for supporting plans to overturn Roe v Wade.
Ms Harris, Mr Pence’s successor, spoke last week at a conference for EMILY’s List, a group that supports Democratic women who support abortion rights, and criticised the court after a leaked draft opinion showed it planned to overturn Roe.
The 1973 Supreme Court decision said that seeking an abortion is a constitutional right. But a draft opinion by Associate Justice Samuel Alito regarding the case Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health that leaked shows the court plans to overturn the longstanding precedent.
“Those Republicans leaders who are trying the weaponise the use of the law against women, well we say, how dare they,” Ms Harris said. “How dare they tell a woman what she can do and cannot do with her own body.”
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But Mr Pence, who has long opposed abortion, criticised his successor’s remarks.
“I say with the lives of 62 million unborn boys and girls ended in abortion since 1973, generations of mothers enduring heartbreaking loss that can last a lifetime: Madam Vice President, how dare you?” Mr Pence said at a Friday event for the Carolina Pregnancy Center, according to Insider.
Mr Pence served as Donald Trump’s vice president when the administration confirmed three of the court’s six conservative justices – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Mr Trump nominated Ms Barrett in 2020 during weeks before the general election after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Senate Democrats plan to hold a vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would codify the protections in Roe v Wade, this week. But West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin opposed it when it came to a vote earlier this year and Democrats, who only have a 50-seat majority with Ms Harris as a tiebreaker, lack the votes to break a Republican filibuster.