[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 36 (Monday, February 24, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1105-S1106]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Women's Healthcare

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, this week, the Senate is having yet another 
debate on legislation to restrict healthcare for women, and I am going 
to take just a few minutes to talk about what this debate is really all 
about.
  The old Republican slogan was ``a chicken in every pot.'' The new 
Republican slogan is ``a Republican in every examining room.''
  The Senate has done remarkably little legislating while under the 
recent control of the other party, but somehow, some way, there always 
seems to be time to have an attack on women's healthcare. It has come 
up again and again, and it is always the same basic proposition on 
offer: Republican politicians trying to somehow squeeze themselves in 
between women and their physicians.
  My view is that the government ought to make sure that women can get 
healthcare from the doctors they trust and that politicians ought to 
stay out of things. Roe v. Wade says that is supposed to be the law of 
the land when it comes to access to abortion. More than four decades of 
settled law says that these are choices to be made by women and their 
doctors, and the ideological agendas of politicians ought to have 
nothing to do with it. The legislation up for debate this week, based 
on yet another far-right cause, says the opposite. Amongst other 
problems, one of the proposals on offer this week would actually 
criminalize the practice of intensely personal healthcare. It would 
essentially say to doctors: Just throw out your training. Throw it 
away. Discard your medical judgment, and forget what is in the 
patient's best interest.

  Rightwing politicians are going to call the shots in the exam room. 
Doctors who provide necessary medical treatment and care that can be 
lifesaving could be thrown in jail if they run afoul of these new 
ideological government standards.
  Now, this isn't a debate just here in the Senate. There have been 
hundreds of bills brought forward in States across the country 
restricting women's healthcare, including safe and legal abortion. 
Among the people hit hardest by these proposals are the millions of 
women in this country who are every single day walking an economic 
tightrope. If they can't see the doctor they trust and if their local 
Planned Parenthood clinic is forced to shutter its doors because of 
these harsh new rules, they may not have anywhere else to turn to for 
vital healthcare. It is another way in which the far right and the 
Republican agenda supporting it goes back to the days when healthcare 
was really just for the healthy and the wealthy.
  Bottom line: This debate is fundamentally about whether the 
government gets to control women's bodies. It is a dangerous, in my 
view, unconstitutional proposition that just throws in the garbage can 
decades of settled law. This Republican majority has proved that we can 
always find time here in the Senate to go after women's healthcare with 
ideological bills, regardless of what other healthcare challenges 
Americans are facing at home.
  I guarantee that across this country right now there are persons 
lined up at

[[Page S1106]]

pharmacy counters with every last penny they have who know they are 
about to get mugged when it comes to paying for the cost of 
prescription medicine. Millions of Americans struggle to pay for their 
medications, but the majority leader of this body has blocked our best 
efforts to give them a hand. Instead, the Senate is debating yet 
another ideological attack on women's healthcare that really has no 
chance of becoming law.
  The likelihood is these attacks, in my view, based on what we know, 
are going to keep coming. It will only get more serious in the months 
ahead. Four more years of Donald Trump would mean the end of Roe v. 
Wade. It would guarantee more healthcare discrimination against women, 
and it would mean a whole lot more government control over women's 
bodies. Again and again, we would see the government in the exam room. 
I urge my colleagues to reject these proposals when they come up.
  I yield the floor.