‘I chose to have an abortion,’ New York AG tells pro-choice protesters: ‘I make no apologies’
This post was originally published on this site
New York Attorney General Letitia James gave a rousing speech at a pro-choice rally in Manhattan Tuesday. She candidly shared with the crowd her personal experience terminating a pregnancy and told protesters she made “no apologies” for her decision.
“I’m here to say we will not go backward; back into those days when we used wire hangers. Not now, not ever,” James said. She added: “The right to control our bodies is a fundamental right enshrined in the 14th Amendment. And if they go after this right, who’s next?”
Crowds gathered to denounce the recently leaked draft opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, indicating that the Court would reverse the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
RELATED STORY: Newsmax host has the caucasity to accuse Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson of leaking Alito opinion
In 2013, James, 63, was elected the public advocate for the City of New York—the first woman of color to hold citywide office. A Democrat, she became the 67th attorney general for the state in 2018, making her the first woman and first woman of color to hold the office.
“As a former city council member, many moons ago, I came to this issue in a very personal way. I was in this place, I was just elected, and I was faced with a decision about whether to have an abortion or not. And I chose to have an abortion and I walked proudly into Planned Parenthood,” James said.
“And I make no apologies to anyone. To no one. And all of you also know that I am a woman of faith, I go to church. But my God teaches me all about love and acceptance. And my God teaches me about privacy. And my God says that you’ve got to make the best decisions for your body and your life,” she added.
The Associated Press reports that James has advocated for funding to help underwrite abortion care for people who need it, and recently joined other attorneys general in filing briefs against states with restrictive abortion laws in place.
“I will not allow Justice Alito or any other judge on the Supreme Court to dictate to me or to you how to use your body. I will not allow Justice Alito to dictate to me my future, my destiny. It is not in the hands of the United States Supreme Court, it’s in our hands,” James said.
The 98-page draft opinion is a defiant indictment of the 1973 ruling promising federal protections for abortion. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled… It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
If all that isn’t enough, Alito pivots to the white savior role, actually attempting to argue that the removal of reproductive rights somehow aligns with a fight against racism—even citing the same misrepresented statistics used by pro-choice activists advocating for eugenics.
In another passage, Alito writes that societal norms around pregnancy when parents aren’t married “have changed drastically” since Roe v. Wade was enacted and argues there’s now a higher demand for adoption.
Adoption numbers are actually declining. Creating a Family reports that the number of children adopted via public child welfare was 57,881 in 2020.