[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 119 (Monday, June 29, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S3629]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                ABORTION

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, this morning, the Supreme Court struck 
down a Louisiana law that would have restricted abortion providers so 
severely that Louisiana would have been left with only a single clinic. 
These types of laws have popped up in State after State as a backdoor 
means of banning abortions--if not in law then in practice--an 
insidious campaign to undermine the rights of women to make their own 
medical decisions.
  Today's ruling is a thunderbolt of justice for millions of American 
women who were at risk of having their constitutional rights 
invalidated by a reactionary State legislature, as there are many 
throughout the country.
  After surprising but very welcome rulings on DACA and LGBTQ rights 2 
weeks ago, the Supreme Court has once again made the right decision. 
The Supreme Court is entering Buffalo Springfield, territory: ``There's 
something happening here.''
  Truthfully, today's ruling should not have been a surprise. The 
Louisiana law violated the Court's precedent. In 2016, the Court struck 
down a Texas law that was virtually identical to the one in Louisiana. 
The newest addition to the Supreme Court, however, despite promising 
the Senate that he would respect precedent, dissented from the 
majority's ruling today. Justice Kavanaugh told Senators he believed 
Roe v. Wade to be settled law, but in the very first ruling on a 
related issue, he decided that the Court's precedent was wrong, and Roe 
v. Wade could be greatly undermined.
  Thankfully, Kavanaugh's view was not in the majority. Today, America 
can breathe a sigh of relief that the Supreme Court kept the floodgates 
firmly shut against this particular attempt to nullify the landmark 
decision of Roe v. Wade.

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