Vice President Kamala Harris plans to visit Charlotte next week to mark the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a 1973 landmark case that federally protected abortion rights, White House officials told McClatchy on Thursday.
And they added that it’s not a coincidence that Harris chose to visit North Carolina just days before new abortion restrictions go into effect on July 1.
North Carolina Republican legislators overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of their 12-week abortion ban last month. The ban offers some exceptions for rape and incest and “life-limiting” fetal anomalies, The News & Observer previously reported. There are no restrictions if a mother’s life is in danger.
The veto override was made possible by Rep. Tricia Cotham, a lawmaker who lives just outside Charlotte, who changed her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican earlier this year, giving Republicans a supermajority. Prior to blindsiding Democrats with a party change, Cotham was perhaps best known for a speech she made on the House floor about an abortion she had when she was younger, a claim that she is now walking back.
U.S. Rep. Kathy Manning of Greensboro, seen here greeting Vice President Kamala Harris at the Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro on April 19, 2021. Travis Long News & Observer
Protecting reproductive rights
White House officials said Harris will use her visit to Charlotte on June 24 — the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision — to draw attention to Republicans trying to push legislation that would ban abortions. She will also use it as an opportunity to rally supporters, advocates and community leaders in North Carolina around the fight for reproductive rights.
Harris wants to put back in place law that would protect reproductive rights nationally.
In advocating for that, White House officials said, she has brought together 50 groups of leaders in 16 states on the front lines of the issue, and also convened 250 state lawmakers from 28 states with health care providers, constitutional law experts, state attorneys general, students, advocates and leaders in faith, disability rights and higher education. She’s also led cabinet secretaries from across the government to implement a response to Dobbs.
Rep. Kathy Manning, a Democrat from Greensboro, this week sponsored a bill that would federally protect a person’s right to contraception.
On Tuesday, Harris will sit down with MSNBC’s Joy Reid for a roundtable on the impact the Supreme Court’s decision has had on Americans in a televised program that will air at 7 p.m.
Visit from Biden
North Carolina has been seeing a lot more of the Biden administration in recent weeks.
Danielle Battaglia is the congressional impact reporter for The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer, leading coverage of the impact of North Carolina’s congressional delegation and the White House. Her career has spanned three North Carolina newsrooms where she has covered crime, courts and local, state and national politics. She has won two McClatchy President’s awards and numerous national and state awards for her work.
