Democrat lawmakers reacted strongly to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade on Friday, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Maxine Waters, who riled up crowds of pro-abortion protesters gathered outside the court.
Ocasio-Cortez was caught on camera chanting with protesters over the Supreme Court’s 6-3 vote, which held that abortion is not a constitutional right. Twenty-six states had petitioned the court to overrule the abortion precedent.
The Democrat representative from New York was seen repeatedly shouting that the Judicial Branch’s decision is “illegitimate” before joining a chant calling for people to get “into the streets.”
Elsewhere, Rep. Waters spoke with members of the press outside the court while surrounded by what she said were pro-abortion protesters.
“You see this turnout here? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Women are going to control their bodies no matter how they try and stop us. The hell with the Supreme Court. We will defy them” Waters says in video posted on Twitter. “Women will be in control of their bodies and if they think black women are intimidated or afraid, they got another thought coming.”
“Black women will be out in droves. We will be out by the thousands. We will be out by the millions,” she continues. “We will make sure that we fight for the right to control our own bodies.”
Waters then turns and waves to “young girls” to whom she declares, “We are fighting for you.”
A masked Rep. Al Green also spoke to the press outside the court on Friday, telling reporters that “there are men who have wives and daughters, there are men who respect women, and there are men who will be in this fight with women.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi started off her press briefing with a melodramatic tone on Friday, saying that “there’s no point in saying ‘good morning’ because it certainly is not one.”
“This morning, the radical Supreme Court is eviscerating Americans’ rights and endangering their health and safety,” Pelosi said. “But the Congress will continue to act to overcome this extremism and protect the American people.”
“Today, the Republican-controlled Supreme Court has achieved the GOP’s dark and extreme goal of ripping away women’s right to make their own reproductive health decisions,” she continued. “Because of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Party and their supermajority on the Supreme Court, American women today have less freedom than their mothers.”
Former President Barack Obama spoke out against the ruling on Twitter, calling the decision – which will allow States to decide their own abortion laws – an attack on “essential freedoms.”
“Today, the Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues—attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans,” Obama wrote.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren also slammed the decision on Twitter, calling the six Supreme Court justices in the majority “radical” and vowing to “fight back.”
“We are angry – angry and determined. We will not go back. Not now. Not ever,” Warren said.
For the second time this week, Attorney General Merrick Garland released a highly political statement condemning a Supreme Court decision.
“The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the Court’s decision. This decision deals a devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States. It will have an immediate and irreversible impact on the lives of people across the country. And it will be greatly disproportionate in its effect – with the greatest burdens felt by people of color and those of limited financial means,” Garland said.
“The Justice Department will use every tool at our disposal to protect reproductive freedom. And we will not waver from this Department’s founding responsibility to protect the civil rights of all Americans,” he added.
