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“There must be consequences for such a deeply destabilizing action and a hostile takeover of our democratic institutions,” the congresswoman said
“I believe lying under oath is an impeachable offense,” she added, referring to Trump-appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. “I believe that violating federal law in not disclosing income from political organizations, as Clarence Thomas did years ago, is also potentially an impeachable offense. I believe that not recusing from cases that one clearly has family members involved in with very deep violations of conflict of interest are also impeachable offenses.”
“I believe that [impeachment] is something that should be very seriously considered, including by senators like Joe Manchin and Susan Collins,” the congresswoman added.
WATCH: If Supreme Court nominees lied under oath, @repaoc says impeachment “should be very seriously considered.”
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 26, 2022
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez: "There must be consequences for such a deeply destabilizing action and hostile takeover of our Democratic institutions." pic.twitter.com/VLU8jsafw2
Since the court issued its decision on Friday, both Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) have said in statements that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh assured them during the confirmation process that they would not overturn the 1973 ruling. “This decision is inconsistent with what Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their testimony and their meetings with me, where they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents that the country has relied upon,” Collins said in a statement following the ruling.
Manchin issued a statement as well, saying, “I trusted Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh when they testified under oath that they also believed Roe v Wade was settled legal precedent and I am alarmed they chose to reject the stability the ruling has provided for two generations of Americans.”
Rolling Stone’s own reporting has revealed that senior Trump White House officials didn’t even think of Collins as a threat to Kavanaugh’s confirmation. “The thinking from Trump … and everybody else who worked to make this happen was that, as long as his nominees didn’t say anything stupid [on abortion] and let the Susan Collins-es of the world think what they needed to think and hear what they needed to hear, then it would get done,” an anonymous former official told Rolling Stone.
Aside from impeachment, Ocasio-Cortez outlined potential actions the Biden administration could take to protect abortion. “What we need to do is show the American people that when they give the Democratic Party power and when they actually do vote for us, that we will be using and we are willing to use the power that they do give us in order to merit increased expansions in our majority,” she said before urging the Biden administration to expand abortion access through pills. She also supported the government providing abortion care at clinics on federal lands in red states, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other Democratic senators have endorsed.
Ocasio-Cortez also did not mince words when responding to Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s defense of the trigger abortion ban in his state that only makes exceptions for the life of the mother but not incest or rape. While Hutchinson claims he disagrees with Arkansas’ lack of an exception for rape and incest, he is the governor who signed the ban into law. Hutchinson told Chuck Todd during an interview Sunday morning that he “would’ve preferred a different outcome” than to ban abortion in all cases in his state except to save the life of the mother (but again, he signed the bill). “I would’ve preferred a different outcome than that. But that’s not the debate today in Arkansas. It might be in the future. But for now, the law triggered with only one exception,” Hutchinson said.
“I couldn’t disagree more with Governor Hutchinson,” the congresswoman said in response. “But I think what’s really important is honing in on this idea that the government — the governor, and the Republican Party, and frankly the Republican legislature in Arkansas — cares about the life of a woman and life of a mother.”
Ocasio-Cortez continued by listing all the ways Arkansas has failed to care for pregnant women and their children. “Governor Hutchinson governs over a state that has the third highest maternal mortality in the United States,” she said. “Seventy-one percent of the women who die [during pregnancy] are Black women as well. This is a state that has 26% child poverty, where one in four children are living in … poverty in the state of Arkansas. And forcing women to carry pregnancies against their will, will kill them. It will kill them, especially in the state of Arkansas, where there is very little to no support for life after birth, in terms of health care, in terms of childcare, and in terms of combating poverty.”
WATCH: @RepAOC (D-N.Y.) responds to Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) and Arkansas’ abortion ban.
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 26, 2022
“This decision and this policy will kill people no matter what their spin and what their talking points are.” pic.twitter.com/ewGWtOcg7h
“This decision and this policy will kill people no matter what their spin and what their talking points are,” she said. “And that’s what the data shows and that’s what the statistics show.”
COVID highlighted the failures of the US health care system, the lack of adequate public health care funding and there are numerous reports of the unnecessary deaths due to the failures caused by the lack of universal health care.
It was only due to funding offered under President Biden's proposals that the care was available, as well as the little noticed military staffing that supplemented overwhelmed hospitals.
In this case, the Republican controlled states offer some of the worst health care, and those that have banned abortion have the highest infant and maternal mortality rates.
Those states offer no paid leave - Mom's supposed to go back to work immediately?
No programs supporting child care or mom are available. Those states also have high poverty rates.
AOC said it all! The facts and statistics are there.
2022 Scorecard on State Health System Performance
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/scorecard/2022/jun/2022-scorecard-state-health-system-performance
Maternal Mortality and Maternity Care in the United States Compared to 10 Other Developed Countries
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/nov/maternal-mortality-maternity-care-us-compared-10-countries
Severe Maternal Morbidity in the United States: A Primer
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/maternal-health
The Loss of Abortion Rights Will Send Shockwaves Through the U.S. Health Care System
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2022/loss-abortion-rights-will-send-shockwaves-through-us-health-care-system
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