On Last Week Tonight With John Oliver Sunday, Oliver spoke about the Supreme Court’s decision passed down Friday overturning Roe v. Wade. In a historic decision removing the federal protection of a woman’s right to an abortion, the court is leaving that up to the states.
“What the Supreme Court has just done is utterly devastating,” Oliver said. “The message it sends is pretty clear: We don’t care if pregnancy kills you. We don’t care if you don’t want to be pregnant. We don’t care about you at all.”
Abortion quickly became illegal in several states, with more likely to follow. Oliver touched on the extreme laws that may be enacted in some states that would dismantle a woman’s right to privacy.
“In states where abortions will now be outlawed, any pregnancy loss past an early cutoff can now potentially be investigated as a crime,” Oliver said. “Which in turn means search histories, browsing histories, text messages, location data, payment data, information from period tracking apps, prosecutors can examine all of that.”
And Oliver blamed Democrats for not doing more to stop this from happening.
“There is a huge amount of understandable rage right now, and there are certainly plenty of individuals and institutions worthy of that anger,” Oliver said. “We have talked before, multiple times, about how exactly we got here. The years of planning by anti-abortion forces, and the failure of Democrats to effectively mobilize to stop them.”
Democrats were slammed over the weekend for fundraising off of the Supreme Court decision, though some have promised to do their part to minimize the negative effect it could have on their constituents. Liberal district attorneys in several states have said that they won’t enforce abortion bans. But overall, Oliver believes the Democrat response to the decision has been weak.
“I am not saying that all I want from leaders is shows of anger,” Oliver said, “but it has been depressing to see so many of them treat the end of Roe v. Wade with the solemnity of a funeral instead of the urgency of a f**king cardiac arrest.”
Last Week Tonight With John Oliver airs Sundays at 11 p.m. on HBO.
Watch Janelle Monáe, Taraji P. Henson and Jazmine Sullivan speak out during a politically charged BET Awards: ‘F*** you, Supreme Court’
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