
Yuki Iwamura The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris is using the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade to argue that Donald Trump is “guilty” of rolling back women’s freedoms and setting off a nationwide health care crisis.
Harris said Monday that Trump “intended” for his three Supreme Court picks to overturn Roe. “It was premeditated,” she said. “Trump has not denied, much less shown remorse, for his actions.”
The vice president, in a nod to her background as a California prosecutor, added, “In the case of the stealing of reproductive freedom from the women of America, Donald Trump is guilty.” Harris headed to Arizona for a second reproductive rights event later Monday.
Trump has repeatedly taken credit for the overturning of a federally guaranteed right to abortion. He nominated three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade but has since resisted supporting a national abortion ban.
The high court earlier this month preserved access to a medication that was used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the United States last year, in the court’s first abortion decision since the case that overturned Roe. But there’s one more case, related to a federal law, called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA.
The law requires doctors to stabilize or treat any patient who shows up at an emergency room and applies to nearly all emergency rooms — any that accept Medicare funding.
The Justice Department has sued Idaho over its abortion law, which allows a woman to get an abortion only when her life — not her health — is at risk.
The state law has raised questions about when a doctor is able to provide the stabilizing treatment that federal law requires.