[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 78 (Tuesday, May 10, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2388-S2389]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Roe v. Wade

  Ms. DUCKWORTH. Mr. President, my older daughter, Abigail--named for 
Abigail Adams, who urged her husband to ``remember the ladies''--is 7. 
She is generous, silly, and so, so smart. She calls herself a maker-kid 
and dreams of being an engineer or an army nurse but definitely not a 
helicopter pilot.
  My younger daughter, Maile, just turned 4. Her laugh is contagious, 
and early on during the pandemic when I was mostly working from home, 
she proved that she was truly her mother's daughter by starting to pull 
pranks, including grabbing my phone and, oopsies, hanging up on whoever 
was on the other line when I was trying to conduct a Zoom meeting or 
review some legislation instead of playing with her. But Abigail and 
Maile might not be here today if it weren't for the basic reproductive 
rights Americans have relied on for nearly 50 years.
  When Roe was decided in 1973, it changed the lives of so many women.
  It saved the lives of 14-year-olds who were the victims of rape or 
incest, who otherwise would have had to turn to back alleys and back 
rooms.
  It changed the lives of women who desperately wanted to be moms but 
who found out their pregnancies weren't viable. They would have to go 
through the pain and suffering and trauma of a full term, only to 
stillborn at the end of 9 months.
  Personally, for me, it gave me my chance to be a mom, for I never 
would have had my creative, silly, drive-me-crazy-yet-love-them-
infinitely two daughters if Roe hadn't paved the way for women to make 
their own healthcare decisions, as I was only able to get pregnant 
through IVF, a fertility process that Roe lays the foundation for.
  Because of IVF, I got to experience all the joys of motherhood. 
Because of reproductive rights, my husband and I aren't just ``Tammy 
and Bryan,'' we are ``Mommy and Daddy.''
  Because of Roe and the rights and laws it protects, we are a family. 
Yet, last week, we learned that the Supreme Court could be just weeks 
away from overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 
decision that, if made final, would strip away reproductive rights for 
millions of women, forcing them to potentially live through the horrors 
and indignities that their grandmothers bore if they needed 
reproductive care, and this would just be the start.
  For while the anti-choice movement has been working for years--
decades--to get to this moment, overturning Roe is not their end goal. 
They want a national ban on abortion, something the Republican Senate 
Leader said was a possibility just last week.
  They want to undermine access to contraception. In some States, 
legislation has already been introduced that would make IVF a crime. In 
Oklahoma, one woman was even convicted of manslaughter for having a 
miscarriage--a miscarriage. Criminalized for having a miscarriage. I 
have had a miscarriage, and there are no words to describe what mothers 
feel in that moment. For me, I was overcome with the rawest, most 
painful emotion I had ever experienced.
  In that moment, losing my baby felt more searing than anything I had 
ever felt in my entire life. Yet if the GOP has its way, women may now 
have to live in fear that that worst moment of their lives may also 
send them to prison. And if extremists get what they are seeking, 
doctors who perform procedures, such as dilation and curettage, to help 
grieving families who have lost a pregnancy might be at risk of going 
to jail too. Doctors like the one who after my own miscarriage 
conducted the D&C to clear out my uterus that allowed me to immediately 
continue my dream of having a baby via IVF, my desperately wished for 
second child, my beautiful rainbow baby, Maile.
  So let's be honest, what is happening is not about protecting life. 
If the anti-choice movement truly wanted to protect life, they would 
stop trying to strip away Americans' healthcare. They would be putting 
all of their efforts into addressing the growing maternal mortality 
crisis that has taken a tragic number of Black mothers' lives.
  They would be pushing for desperately needed policies that support 
parents, like affordable childcare and paid parental leave. If 
Republicans actually cared about being pro-life, they would do 
something, anything, to stand up to the National Rifle Association.
  So, no, this isn't about saving lives. This isn't about looking out 
for families. It is about getting a slap on the back from their base 
and exerting even more control over women's bodies. It is about 
deepening divides between the haves and the have-nots. It is about

[[Page S2389]]

making it even harder to undo centuries of harm unleashed by systemic 
racism and economic injustice, systems under which women of color have 
suffered the most. Look, I know that a lot of us are tired from the 
seemingly endless fight to protect our most basic human rights, but we 
can do more. We have to do more. We must.
  Congress itself has the power. We have the ability to vote tomorrow 
to pass the Women's Health Protection Act, which would codify Roe v. 
Wade once and for all because, let me be clear, women seeking care 
should not be ashamed. The people who should feel shame are those 
forcing these women to live through unnecessary pain and suffering. The 
people who should feel shame are those who claim to be pro-life, yet 
would let a mother die in childbirth for an unviable pregnancy, who 
refuse to expand Medicaid, who believe guns should be easy to get but 
basic healthcare impossible to find. These are the people who should be 
ashamed. These are the people who have no shame. And I will be damned 
if I let my daughters grow up in a country that gives them fewer rights 
than their mom had.
  So here I am today fighting for tomorrow that doesn't look like our 
yesterday because in that yesterday, those of us with uteruses were 
treated as second-class citizens. And I didn't learn to fly Black Hawk 
helicopters, go to war for this Nation, nearly lose my life fighting 
for the rights enshrined in that Constitution I protected, only to come 
back home and have those same rights stripped away from the next 
generation of girls who simply want to be able to follow their own 
dreams, like I did mine.
  To me, it comes down to this: Women should be allowed to make their 
healthcare decisions without Mitch McConnell's voice or Brett 
Kavanaugh's face haunting them at their OB/GYN appointment. So shame on 
those who want to take us back to the pre-Roe back alleys. Shame on 
those who don't dare regulate guns but want to regulate our uteruses.
  I will fight with everything I have got to keep us out of those back 
alleys because it is the least that the women who came before us and 
fought for these rights deserve, and it is the least that our own 
daughters need. So enough of the hypocrisy, enough of the misogyny, 
enough of some men in hallowed halls of DC arguing that they know 
better than women in Illinois or Arizona or Missouri. We can and we 
must do better. That means proving that we care about women every day 
of the year, not just on one Sunday in May. That means codifying Roe 
now. Let's vote.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Padilla). The Senator from Texas.