Illinois Republican Representative Mary Miller was harshly criticized after she called the reversal of Roe v. Wade a "victory for white life" during a speech in which she thanked former President Donald Trump at a rally in Mendon, Illinois over the weekend.
Miller's remarks came shortly after the United States Supreme Court published a ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision that once protected a person's right to choose reproductive health care without excessive government restriction.
She thanked Trump "on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America," adding a "thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday" to the cheers of the crowd.
You can hear her remarks in the video below.
While in office, Trump had the opportunity to appoint three conservative justices who had gone on record opposing abortion to the Supreme Court, raising concerns among Democrats that they would threaten the Roe v. Wade precedent.
While the largely conservative court ultimately voted to uphold abortion rights in June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo (2020), in which the Court ruled that a Louisiana state law placing hospital-admission requirements on abortion clinics doctors was unconstitutional, fears that Roe would ultimately fall were not unfounded.
Much of the debate surrounding the legality of abortion in the United States as of late has been informed at least in part by the current wave of Christian nationalist thought that advocates for White supremacy at all costs.
Meanwhile, prominent Republicans like former President Trump's ex-chief strategist Steve Bannon have pushed replacement theory, a conspiracy theory that states White European populations and their descendants are being demographically and culturally replaced with non-European peoples.
Bannon was criticized last year after he demanded people have more "Judeo-Christian" babies so these children could be "trained" in order to "save civilization."
Miller was swiftly criticized for her remarks.
Later, Miller's spokesman claimed that Miller had misread her notes and should have said "right to life." However, Miller has made headlines in the past for espousing White supremacist thought.
In January 2021, mere days after she began her term in the House of Representatives, Miller courted controversy after she quoted German Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler—who orchestrated the systematic genocide of more than 11 million people including over six million Jews and millions of Romani, disabled, LGBTQ+ and critics of the Nazi regime—during a prepared speech to the conservative group Moms for America.
Miller who had referred to a remark Hitler once made that "Whoever has the youth has the future," later doubled down, saying her remarks had been intended to compare alleged youth indoctrination efforts by "left-wing radicals" to those of Hitler.
