[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 103 (Monday, June 27, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4588-S4589]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       WHOLE WOMAN'S HEALTH V. HELLERSTEDT SUPREME COURT DECISION

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, today, the Supreme Court, despite lacking 
an important ninth Justice--my Republican colleagues refuse to do their 
jobs. That is the first time that anybody can remember, maybe in 
history--certainly in recent history--where a Supreme Court nominee has 
been sent to the Senate by a President, and the Senate has refused to 
do either hearings or certainly refuse to bring that Justice up for a 
vote. If this continues, if Senator McConnell and his Republican 
colleagues continue their course, this will be the first time in 150 
years where a Supreme Court vacancy has stayed open for an entire year. 
Why 150 years? Because we were in the middle of the Civil War, and 
there were all kinds of things going on as southerners, who had 
seceded, left the Supreme Court with lots of vacancies, and the Senate 
didn't do its job then. But that was the Civil War; this is a political 
war waged by one side in a refusal to do its job.

  Today the Supreme Court, despite not having nine members, reaffirmed 
that women, not politicians, should be the ones making their own health 
care decisions. In a 5-to-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled on Whole 
Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt that the Texas law at issue places an 
undue burden on a woman's ability to access safe and legal health care.
  The law's arbitrary, medically unnecessary--medically unnecessary--
restrictions caused dozen of clinics to close across the State of 
Texas. The same thing has happened in other States with similar laws, 
including my State of Ohio with 11 million people. These clinics are 
often the only places that women, and also many men, have to turn to 
for basic health services. Today's decision is a victory for health 
care in Texas and, ultimately, for State after State across the 
country.
  Millions of women rely on Planned Parenthood and other clinics like 
it for lifesaving screenings, testing, preventive care, and treatment. 
In Ohio, Planned Parenthood centers provide health care services to 
almost 100,000 men and women each year. A hundred thousand men and 
women depend on Planned Parenthood for things like screenings, testing, 
preventive care, and treatment. Many of these men and women have 
nowhere else to turn. They either can't afford care anywhere else or 
they live too far away from another health center to have real access 
to basic health care--screenings, testing, preventive care, counseling, 
treatment, and all those things.
  Today's decision sets an important precedent that no politician 
should come between a woman and the health care she needs. We know that 
laws like this are part of a sustained, coordinated attack on a women's 
right to make personal, private health care decisions for themselves. 
We have seen it in Ohio, and we have seen it in so many other States 
across the country.
  Politicians claim these harmful restrictions are all about protecting 
women's health. Nothing could be further from the truth. These talking 
points are a sham, and today's majority decision by a generally 
conservative Supreme Court shows the Court saw right through those 
arguments.
  Ohio and other States with so-called TRAP laws should repeal them 
immediately. If they wait, they will only be struck down by the Court, 
just like the Texas law--again, a Court where most of those Justices, 
or at least half of those Justices were appointed by conservative 
Presidents. We need to work to get these laws off the books quickly and 
to fight the attacks women continue to face on their right to make 
their own health care decisions.
  Earlier this year, Ohio passed a new law to strip Federal funding not 
only from Planned Parenthood but any health care facility that could be 
perceived as ``promoting'' safe and legal abortions. This includes 
health clinics that simply work with other providers to refer women to 
other facilities so women can make decisions that should be between 
them and their doctors.
  This is far, far more sweeping than just defunding Planned 
Parenthood, which is a political talking point for Republicans across 
this country now. Health officials in Ohio are scared that the new law 
could take funding away from local health departments--as if we don't 
have enough problems in our State.
  Let's be clear. This isn't about defunding abortion. The Federal 
government does not provide funding for abortion, period. It hasn't 
provided funding for abortion for decades. This Ohio law explicitly 
targets critical health and health education services for women, 
including HIV testing and cancer prevention services.
  Today's 5-to-3 decision by the Supreme Court is a victory for all of 
us who want to improve the lives and health of women around the 
country, but it will do nothing to stop laws like this in Ohio. That is 
why our work goes on.
  These laws that have passed in Texas and Ohio that the Court struck 
down are not about health or safety. The Supreme Court confirmed that 
today. They are about politicians thinking they know better than women 
and their doctors, and it is happening every day in this country. If 
these laws continue to chip away--or in the case of Ohio's new law, 
carve away--women's access to care, we will see more undiagnosed 
cancers, more untreated illnesses, and more unintended pregnancies.
  My State, shamefully, is 50th in the Nation in Black infant 
mortality. We are 47th in the Nation overall in infant

[[Page S4589]]

mortality. It is laws like these that legislators passed--laws 
defunding public health services, laws cutting money for local 
communities so they can put it into health care and education. It is 
the behavior of this legislature and some of its predecessor 
legislatures that have attacked young mothers and young women who may 
or may not be pregnant. And when you do that, there is simply not the 
emphasis on well-baby care, there is not the emphasis on preventive 
care, there is not the emphasis on the health of the mother, and there 
is not the emphasis on giving women choices.
  It is time for politicians in my State and across the country to 
follow the guidance of the Supreme Court today and to stay out of 
decisions that should be confidentially between a woman and her doctor.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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