Senate and House Democrats took to social media Saturday to mark the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, taking aim at the ‘six far-right justices’ who delivered the abortion ruling.
The remarks from elected Democrats came amid the gathering of thousands of pro-life advocates in the nation’s capital to celebrate the high court’s ruling last summer, which ended recognition of a constitutional right to abortion and gave individual states the power to allow, limit or ban the practice altogether.
‘In the year since extreme right-wing Supreme Court justices overturned Roe, millions of Americans lost their fundamental right to decide what happens to their own bodies. But in that year, millions more stood up to defend those rights,’ Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., wrote in a tweet. ‘They organized, voted, and supported one another. And it is those Americans who give me hope.’
‘Together, we will keep fighting until we restore our reproductive freedom,’ Gillibrand added.
‘A year ago today, six far-right justices on the Supreme Court threw out decades of legal precedent — dismantling the legal freedoms enshrined in Roe v. Wade,’ Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., remarked in a tweet, which included a statement on the matter.
In his statement, Menendez claimed that the ‘majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decided to abdicate their oath to uphold the rule of law in favor of fanning the flames of extremist efforts to end women’s bodily autonomy and unravel the progress we have made as a society.’
Menendez asserted that the court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has ‘opened the flood gates to dangerous assaults on reproductive health care and other long-protected freedoms.’
Sharing her thoughts about the issue, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., insisted in a video message that the ruling from the ‘activist Supreme Court’ was ‘devastating for the health, safety and future of millions of women across America.’
‘Having the freedom to control your health care, your body and your future, free from government interference, is a fundamental right,’ she said.
Echoing his colleagues, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., wrote in a tweet that the ‘six extremist Supreme Court justices toppled years of precedent to gut access to abortion.’
‘The decision to have an abortion is a difficult one – and one a woman alone should make. Not pundits, not lawmakers,’ Merkley said. ‘In Oregon, the right to abortion is protected by state law. But our fight continues to codify the right to the full range of reproductive health care for EVERYONE in our country.’
Reflecting rhetoric used by President Biden, Merkely added: ‘Make no mistake: MAGA Republicans and the extremist pundits who are cheering them on are pushing for a national abortion ban – a dangerous proposal that will put patients at risk. I will continue to fight to protect reproductive freedom.’
Also taking aim at the court’s decision, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said that Americans must ‘fight’ to preventing members of the court from ‘imposing a backwards, extreme agenda.’
‘One year ago, a far-right Supreme Court majority overturned the decades-old precedent set by Roe, eliminating the right of women to make their own reproductive decisions,’ Whitehouse wrote in a tweet. ‘We have to fight against the Court imposing a backwards, extreme agenda on our country.’
Similar to that of Baldwin, House Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., shared a video message vowing not to ‘back down’ on the issue of abortion.
‘One year ago today, the right-wing majority of the Supreme Court handed down a radical decision to take away abortion rights from millions of Americans,’ she wrote in a tweet. ‘But we won’t back down. We’ll fight back and ensure this constitutional right is guaranteed.’
‘We now live in an America where generations of people grew up assuming certain things were here to stay now face a future where they have fewer rights than their parents and grandparents,’ Jayapal said in the video. ‘An America where extreme right-wing legislatures are so out of step with their own constituents that they want to take away fundamental freedoms that a majority of the American people support.’
Discussing the ‘choice’ to terminate her own pregnancy at one point in time, Jayapal said the decision to have an abortion should be made only ‘between the individual, their doctor, and the loved ones they choose to consult.’
Two dozen states – Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming – have all implemented laws since the Dobbs ruling, restricting abortions except to save the life of the mother. Most of these states also have exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Several of these state bans are being held up in litigation.
Fox News’ Kristine Parks contributed to this article.
