U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday visited a clinic that performs abortions in the Midwestern state of Minnesota in a show of Democratic support for women’s reproductive rights.
“In this environment, these attacks against an individual’s right to make decisions about their whole body are outrageous, and in many instances, just immoral,” Harris said at a Planned Parenthood facility in St. Paul, Minnesota.
“How dare elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what is in their best interest.”
Ahead of her visit, about two dozen protesters gathered outside, holding signs with slogans such as “Life is a human right,” “They’re killing babies here” and “The real war on women.”
While Harris has been outspoken in specific support of abortion rights, Biden, a devout Catholic, has in a sense been more restrained.
Her office said it was the first time one of the top two U.S. leaders had ever visited such a medical facility.
The right to abortion remains a volatile issue ahead of the November national election in a country where typically more than 80,000 abortions are performed every month, even in the time since the U.S.
Supreme Court two years ago overturned a nearly five-decade-old ruling that said women had a constitutional right to the procedure.
