Former Rep. Liz Cheney said the restrictive abortion policies put in place by her fellow Republicans have created an “untenable” situation for millions.
Cheney made the comments during a Monday town hall session in Wisconsin alongside Vice President Kamala Harris. Cheney has endorsed the Democratic nominee’s presidential bid, citing the need to cross party lines to defend democracy against Republican nominee Donald Trump and events like the January 6 attack on the Capitol that he instigated.
“I’m pro-life and I have been very troubled, deeply troubled, by what I have watched happen in so many states since Dobbs,” Cheney said, citing “women who, in some cases, have died, who can’t get medical treatment that they need because providers are worried about criminal liability.”
Her conclusion: “We’re facing a situation today where—I think that it’s an untenable one.”
The 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization by a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling and allowed Republican-led states to implement and enforce anti-choice laws and regulations. Trump appointed three of the six justices who voted with the court majority.
Cheney warned that there are “fundamentally dangerous” things that have happened in the years following the court’s unpopular decision.
Among the issues Cheney singled out: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s pending lawsuit that seeks to obtain the medical records of women who have crossed state lines to get an abortion. Abortion is illegal in Texas except “when a doctor, in their ‘reasonable medical judgment,’ believes it is necessary to save the life or protect the health of the pregnant patient,” according to the Texas Tribune.
”Even if you are pro-life, as I am, I do not believe … that the state of Texas ought to have the right, as they’re currently suing to do, to get access to a woman’s medical records,” Cheney said.
Cheney also cited cases where women have died because they could not receive abortion care.
As she noted, Cheney has a legislative record of opposing abortion access and even received an “A” rating from the anti-choice group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. But she said that several states’ extremist actions following the Supreme Court’s decision cause her concern.
Cheney pointed out that Trump has praised himself for appointing the justices who overturned the precedent.
“You just cannot count on him, you can’t trust him,” she said.
Trump has claimed he isn’t affiliated with anti-choice extremists and tried to distance himself from Republican efforts to pass a federal abortion ban. But recent opinion polling has shown that most voters are skeptical, with 51 percent surveyed by Navigator Research saying they believe he would sign such a law.
Harris has argued that those with strong religious objections to abortion should still back efforts to curtail the fallout from Trump’s effort to pack the Supreme Court with justices who eventually nullified the constitutional right to an abortion.
“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree: The government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” she said during her September debate against him.
Harris backs federal legislation that would enshrine the protections of Roe in federal law and has said she backs killing the Senate filibuster if it would enable the passage of such legislation. Current Senate rules require that if legislation is filibustered by a single senator, 60 votes are required before an issue can be voted on, even if a majority supports a proposal.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
