Vice President Harris is worried that the Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, could revoke established rights after overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“This court has proven to be an active court,” Harris told The New York Times. “I am concerned about basic freedoms in general.“
The vice president mentioned that she didn’t want to point out specific legal precedents the court could overturn because she didn’t want to seem “alarmist.”
“But this court has clearly indicated that they are ready to revoke established rights,” she told the outlet.
“You could even look at Clarence Thomas saying a lot of the quiet part out loud,” she said. “Just look at what he said and then maybe that gives us some indication. Just look at one of the justices to see where they might go next.”
Harris has been at the forefront of the White House’s response to the Supreme Court ruling that annulled Roe v. Wade and paved the way for several GOP-led states to enforce strict abortion bans.
Her remarks echoed President Biden’s own criticism of the Supreme Court, which in recent years has overturned precedent protecting the right to an abortion and upended affirmative action.
Thomas wrote in a separate opinion on the case that overturned Roe that the court “should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents,” including the rulings that affirmed access to contraceptives and protected gay marriage.
“This is not a normal court,” Biden said last year following the affirmative action ruling.
“Take a look at how its ruled on a number of issues that have been precedent for 50, 60 years sometimes. And that’s what I meant by not normal,” the president said in a subsequent interview. “Across the board, the vast majority of the American people don’t agree with majority of decisions the court is making.”
