Not Just Abortion: Republicans Attempting ‘Roll Back of Civil Liberties in General’
Political right targeting a broad swath of Americans, including transgender and others
The current battle for civil liberties in the United States is not about abortion rights alone. Rather, the Republican Party is working on a “roll back of civil liberties, in general,” according to a prominent progressive congresswoman.
The fight over the availability of the abortion pill, mifepristone — and the wider abortion landscape in a world post-Roe v Wade — may be dominating the headlines.
But, make no mistake, said Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the political right is after much more.
“I think we’re in an extremely serious moment. I believe that the Republican Party is not starting at Roe, they will not stop at Roe,” Ocasio-Cortez said, referring to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision which guaranteed abortion rights for nearly half a century until the right-wing supermajority on the current high court struck it down last year, launching a free-for-all across the country as Republican-led “red states,” began clamping down on abortion access while left-leaning blue states worked to guarantee those rights into the future.
“They will not stop just at women’s rights, I believe that what we are seeing as a concerted rollback of civil liberties in general. Our right to privacy, our right to bodily autonomy, our right to marry whomever we wish to marry, all of this is at risk. I do not think they will stop,” said Ocasio-Cortez, a leader of the so-called “squad” of progressive lawmakers in the House of Representatives. “And many of the folks, there were so many people when we were warning that Roe was truly at risk, called progressives hysterical and they said that we are overestimating the risk, that this is never going to happen.
“And just as we warned about Roe, we are warning about the very real risks. And we’re already seeing the attacks on trans Americans. We are seeing the attacks on LGBT Americans,” she added. “We have even seen Republican members of the Senate insinuate that interracial marriage is something that should be up for debate.”
It's up to the rest of Americans to stay vigilant and fight back, Ocasio-Cortez said in an on-camera interview with MSNBC host Jen Psaki. “These are our civil rights and our civil liberties, and we have to resist. We must resist these attempts to roll back the basic human rights of certain communities of Americans based on identity.”
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