- Democratic Rep. Cori Bush says she’s “spoiled” by the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade.
- The 45-year-old congresswoman from Missouri previously revealed that she had an abortion after being raped as a teenager.
- “As much as we knew it was coming, how could it be a real thing?” Bush questioned.
Democratic Rep. Cori Bush, who previously disclosed she had an abortion after being raped as a teenager, said Tuesday she was “shattered” by a leaked US Supreme Court draft opinion suggesting five conservative justices would overrule the constitutional right to abortion.
“I’m pretty gutted,” the 45-year-old congresswoman from Missouri told The New York Times in an interview Tuesday. “Whether you have an abortion, or have a child, no one is at that table with you. No one is in that bed with you.”
Bush said that when he heard the explosive news Monday that a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion shows the court is ready to overturn the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, he immediately called his staff in disbelief.
“My brain was just saying, how could this happen?” she reminded the Times. “As much as we knew it was coming, how could it really be a real thing? Who could be so cruel?”
Bush is one of the few lawmakers who has publicly shared that she has had an abortion.
“[W]hen I was 17 years old, they raped me, I got pregnant and had an abortion,” said congresswoman noted in a tweet last September. “And I’m not ashamed.”
The next day, Bush spoke about what happened during an emotional congressional hearing on abortion rights.
Bush testified before the House Oversight Committee at the time, saying that choosing to have an abortion was the “hardest decision” she ever made.
“At 18, I knew it was the right decision for me,” he said, adding that it was “liberating to know I had options.”
Bush told the Times on Tuesday that he never questioned whether he could have a safe abortion because of the Roe v. Wade.
“Now we’re going to change this: After 49 years, going back and then saying, lifting up, a generation of people who, ‘Okay, you thought this was an option for you, and now it’s not,'” he said, according to the Times.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday confirmed the authenticity of the leaked draft opinion.
“Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision of the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case,” the court said. said in a statement.