Congressional Record, Volume 168 Issue 78 (Tuesday, May 10, 2022)

[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 78 (Tuesday, May 10, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2395-S2404]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

Women's Health Protection Act

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I rise today to urge the Senate to take
action to protect abortion rights and defend our constitutional rights.
A far-right, extremist Supreme Court wants to force their views on
every American. Roe v. Wade has protected the right to a safe, legal
abortion for nearly 50 years. Though Republicans have tried to
challenge it in court many times, the Supreme Court has reaffirmed Roe
over and over and over again--until now.
So what changed? Why is something that is repeatedly referred to as
``settled law'' on the threshold of being swept away like so much dust?
Why is a law that literally tens of millions of people have depended on
to protect access to a safe, legal abortion suddenly about to
evaporate?
We don't arrive here accidentally. We are here because Republican
politicians have spent decades plotting for this moment. They have
cultivated extremist judges. Groups like the Federalist Society have
screened possible candidates and drawn up lists of which possible
candidates could and could not be counted on. Extremist donors spent
billions in dark money so that their preferred ideologues could chip
away at people's fundamental rights and do it from the Bench.
Republican candidates for office pledged to support Justices who would
get rid of Roe v. Wade. And, finally, when all of that still wasn't
enough, Republicans stole two seats on the Supreme Court, all to force
their unpopular minority agenda on the rest of America.

I am here to sound a warning. Republican extremism has been carefully
nurtured for years. Now Republican extremism is spreading, and now it
is obvious that Republican extremism knows no bounds.
Let's talk about the facts--the facts of Republican extremism--and
let's begin with who pays the price for Republican extremism. Changes
in abortion laws will have terrible consequences, but those
consequences will not fall equally on everyone. No, those with money
will always have the option to leave the State or leave the country to
travel where abortion is safe and legal. No, the people who will pay
the biggest price will be the most vulnerable among us--the mama
already working two jobs to help make ends meet to support the children
she has; the women working jobs who have no paid leave and who can't
take 3 days off work to go to another State; the women in South Dakota
scrambling to make an appointment at the only abortion clinic in the
entire State; the 12-year-old who has been molested; the person who has
been raped; the women in Texas who need lifesaving care their doctors
can't provide; and the women all across the country, especially women
of color, already facing shamefully high maternal mortality rates--
because in America, carrying a pregnancy to term is 43 times riskier
than a legal abortion.
These are the facts about overturning Roe v. Wade, and these are the
people--disproportionately low-income women, women of color, and women
in rural communities--who will pay the price for Republican extremism.
Overturning Roe is just the beginning. Republican State legislatures
all across the country have already been emboldened by this Supreme
Court, introducing hundreds of anti-abortion bills this year alone.
States are now introducing bills to declare it a crime for someone to
obtain an abortion, for someone to provide an abortion, or for someone
just to help someone locate where they might get an abortion.
And where will the Republican extremists turn next? Will they
investigate every miscarriage? Will they put every obstetrician and
gynecologist on the watch list? Will they monitor location data for
every person who pulls into the parking lot of a Planned Parenthood
clinic?
Let's be absolutely clear about what will happen if this decision
stands. Republicans want to do more than criminalize abortion; they
want to criminalize women for making decisions about their pregnancies
and their own health. This isn't theoretical. It is already coming to
pass.
In Texas, where abortion has been virtually inaccessible to millions
of Texans for the last 8 months, a young woman has been charged with
murder for an alleged self-induced abortion.
An Oklahoma law has passed that would outlaw abortion even in the
case of rape or incest. But what Republicans are really after is
criminalizing women's very bodies.
In Louisiana, Republicans are pushing for the most extreme bill yet,
legislation that would classify abortion as a homicide. If enacted,
this bill could criminalize women for using certain forms of birth
control or even for having a miscarriage that she had no control over.
And we know who will be the most affected by the overcriminalization
of women's bodies. It will be women of color who are already
overpoliced and face the greatest barriers to accessing healthcare.
The intrusiveness of these State laws is vile. Efforts to give
fertilized eggs ``personhood'' rights and to criminalize abortion could
make IVF procedures criminal, depriving someone who wants to get
pregnant the only option available to her.
As some States get more and more aggressive about intruding into the
private lives of millions of women, just this weekend, the Republican
leader, Mitch McConnell, signaled he is open to even more extremism. He
said that a nationwide abortion ban was ``possible'' if Republicans
retake the majority--a nationwide abortion ban applicable in every
State, including those States that are currently working overtime to
protect access to abortion; a nationwide abortion ban applicable to
girls who have been molested and to people who have been raped and to
women who are already working three jobs to support the women they
have. Republican extremism is spreading. Republican extremism knows no
bounds.
For me, this isn't about politics; this is personal. I have lived in
a world where abortion was illegal. I learned early on that when the
law bans abortions, only safe and legal abortions will actually be
banned. I lived in a world in which women bled to death from back-ally
abortions, a world in which infections and other complications
destroyed women's futures, a world in which women's educations and
lives were derailed by an unplanned pregnancy, a world in which some
women took their own lives rather than continuing with a pregnancy they
could not bear.
I have also lived in a world where abortion is legal. For decades,
expanded access to abortion has allowed people to make decisions about
their own bodies and lives, promoting access to life-changing
opportunities and careers that have previously seemed out of reach. But
the Republican extremists and the extremist Justices they have put on
the Supreme Court just don't care. They want to send us back to the
days when women's rights to control their own bodies and their own
futures simply did not exist.

[[Page S2396]]

American freedoms are under attack. The liberty of more than half our
population is under attack. Republicans have planned long and hard for
this day, and now that it is here, we must stand and fight.
Tomorrow, the Senate will vote on the Women's Health Protection Act
to enshrine the right to an abortion in Federal law. We need the
Women's Health Protection Act to prevent radical rightwing State
legislatures from ever enacting extreme bills like Texas's SB 8 or
Mississippi's 15-week ban. With WHPA, we will take the steps necessary
to protect our human rights. It is just that simple.

And for everyone who says we don't have the votes in the Senate to
get this done, I say, then get in the fight and give us the Senators
who will get it done. Don't tell us what we can't do to stop Republican
extremism; get in the fight to help us beat these abortion restrictions
into the dirt. Get in the fight to recognize the dignity and liberty of
every American.
After this vote, there will be no ambiguity. Every American will know
exactly where their elected representatives in Congress stand, and
every Senator will have to explain whether they defend the right of
every person to have control over their own bodies and their own
futures or whether they will stand by as women's constitutional rights
are brazenly stripped away.
Whenever this Court strikes down freedoms and rights guaranteed by
the Constitution, Congress must defend Americans every single time. I
am angry that a group of unelected ideologues on the Supreme Court
think that they can turn current law upside down and dictate to tens of
millions of people across this country the terms of their pregnancies
and their lives.
But the Supreme Court does not get the last word on the right to a
safe and legal abortion. The American people, through their leaders
right here in Congress, can take action. And that is why I will vote to
support the Women's Health Protection Act. That is why I will fiercely
oppose any threat to our liberty. And that is why I will continue to
fight with every bone in my body to protect the right of every woman to
control her own future.
Republican extremism is spreading. Republican extremism knows no
bounds. Tomorrow, we have a chance to fight back, and we will fight
back.
I have lived in a world where abortion is illegal, and we are not
going back--never.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, when I introduced the Women's Health
Protection Act in 2013--yes, in 2013, almost 10 years ago--the idea
that Roe v. Wade would be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court was
virtually unthinkable. We accepted 50 years of established precedent,
long-accepted law in this country--as something that was virtually
unimaginable.
Women relied on it. Our society took it as a core principle of our
constitutional law, much as Brown v. Board of Education, Marbury v.
Madison, Roe v. Wade, tenets and pillars of constitutional law in this
country. And when we asked nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, the
three most recent of them--and I personally asked this question--is Roe
v. Wade established law, they said to us that they would rely on stare
decisis, which for everyday Americans is, basically, we will follow
established precedent as articulated year after year by the U.S.
Supreme Court.
The now well-reported Alito draft of an opinion overturning Roe v.
Wade came like a thunderbolt, an earthquake, a seismic blow that
constitutional scholars thought was unthinkable.
The draft itself is strident and brash. It is disrespectful in a way
that Supreme Court opinions never are. It is unprecedented in its tone
and approach, saying that Roe v. Wade was egregiously wrong, failing to
accurately portray what it held and the reasons for its holding.
There is no question in my mind that the Court, in its final opinion,
will smooth the edges of that draft. It will try to tone down the
rhetoric. It will dress it up. But the result will be the same. No
matter how the Court may try to dress it up, it will have the same
impact on millions of Americans and their families because the U.S.
Supreme Court is poised to issue the most radical ruling in recent
history--perhaps in the entire history of the United States--the most
extreme contraction of fundamental constitutional rights in the history
of the United States.
Let's indulge ourselves for a moment in a belief in the American
dream and the exceptionalism of America, which is to expand rights and
liberties. The story of America is expanding freedoms and liberties for
all of us, not reducing it, restricting it. But this Supreme Court is
poised to eradicate a fundamental right that millions of Americans have
relied on for half a century. The Court has signaled that it will
inflict an enormous leap backwards, with incalculable costs and chaos
for countless women and their families. If the Court indeed overturns
Roe, 23 States have laws that would immediately go into effect to be
used to restrict the legal status of abortion.
Today, 90 percent of American counties already lack a single abortion
provider--not one in 90 percent of American counties--and 27 cities
have become so-called abortion deserts because people who live there
have to travel 100 miles or more to reach a provider. Without the
protections of Roe, this situation will become even worse for millions
of Americans. Women in Louisiana, just to take one example, will be 630
miles from the nearest abortion clinic. Women in Florida, Texas,
Mississippi, Utah, and many other States would be in a similar
position. Access to reproductive freedom will depend on a woman's ZIP
Code, not on her personal choices or her needs.
Abortion bans without Roe will disproportionately impact low-income
women in those 23 States poised to ban abortion.
Justice Alito--perhaps not surprisingly--fails to address the ways
that the Court's ruling will disproportionately impact communities of
color all around the United States. There is an issue here of racial
justice because these restrictions disproportionately affect Black
women and other racial minority communities. Today, fewer than 1 in 10
abortion providers are located in neighborhoods where the majority of
residents are Black. That is a simple, straightforward fact of life.
And the closure of clinics will make it only worse.
The simple fact is that Dobbs will turn back the clock. It will roll
back protections relating to fundamental rights.
May I say that the same people who argue that mask requirements
designed to protect public health infringe on their fundamental
liberties are perfectly happy sending the government into a hospital
room as a couple makes an incredibly difficult, personal life decision.
The same people who see masks as an infringement on bodily autonomy are
perfectly happy with the government telling a woman who comes to a
hospital, possibly in mortal danger of internal bleeding from an
ectopic pregnancy: You will have to die. No doctor can help you.
That is not bodily autonomy; that is not liberty.
After the Court's final decision in Dobbs, today's young women, the
young women of 2022, will have fewer rights than their grandmothers.
Young women today will have fewer rights than two generations ago. To
someone who recalls the seminal decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973 and the
promise of that moment, it is unacceptable.
I was a law clerk to the author of Roe v. Wade in the term after he
wrote the opinion. Justice Blackmun and the Court decided by a 7-to-2
majority--7 to 2; Justice Blackmun was appointed by a Republican
President--that this right is fundamental. Whether you criticize the
decision--and there have been plenty of people who criticized that
opinion--it has been established law, relied on, incorporated in
precedent after precedent. And now, in the Women's Health Protection
Act, we ask that it be incorporated in statute, that the Roe v. Wade
standard be enshrined and embodied in a statute, just as Connecticut
did in its State statute in 1990--a law that I championed when I was in
our Connecticut State Senate.
In lieu of well-established Supreme Court precedent, Justice Alito
relies on a 17th-century English jurist who advocated for marital rape
and who tried women for witchcraft. This isn't just judicial activism;
this is extremism. This is fringe history cloaked in a judge's robe.

[[Page S2397]]

And do you know what is conspicuously absent from Justice Alito's
radical draft opinion? What is absent is women. Justice Alito gives
absolutely no credence to the empirical evidence before the Court--
evidence offered by health experts and economists who demonstrate the
ways in which women have relied upon abortion access to make decisions
about their health, their lives, their careers, and their future.
Instead, he gestures at the fact that women have the right to vote as
evidence they don't need the right to control their lives and their own
bodies. I am sorry, but the right to vote is where rights begin; it is
not where they end.

And we know the truth, whether or not Justice Alito acknowledges it:
The Court's world without Roe would not just impact one segment of
society, one demographic, one geographic area; it will affect all of
us. One in four American women will undergo an abortion in her
lifetime--one in four.
To the men of America, all of you love someone, you know someone, you
treasure someone who has had an abortion, who has needed an abortion.
You can't sit this one out.
It is all of us, men as well as women. We all have a stake in this
radical decision that will affect all of America and make us a lesser
nation with fewer rights and liberties.
The Court's draft opinion in Dobbs is just the next step in a
multidecade fight which the Court has waged on abortion access. It has
already shown willingness to dramatically curtail the right of a
pregnant person to decide whether and when to have a child. Just ask
women in the State of Texas. They are living in a State without the
protections of Roe v. Wade, with a dangerous anti-abortion law, SB 8,
which contains a 6-week abortion ban. Six weeks is far before many
women even know they are pregnant, as all of us in this Chamber know.
Texas's dangerous law deputizes private citizens to enforce the
State's onerous abortion law. In Texas, a rapist can sue a doctor if
they provide an abortion to a rape survivor. Someone who drove their
sister to a healthcare clinic where she has an abortion could be sued,
again, by anyone in the United States--anybody--with a $10,000
government prize money waiting for that bounty hunter. This is
extremism--extremism--in a judge's robes.
I am proud to say that the State of Connecticut today has a law--
literally, the Governor signed this law today--making sure that people
are protected in Connecticut against those kinds of bounty hunters. My
hope is that other States will follow Connecticut in providing that
kind of basic protection.
It has never been more urgent for the Congress at the Federal level
to pass the Women's Health Protection Act. The Women's Health
Protection Act would protect rights established by 50 years of Court
precedent, protecting the right to an abortion prior to fetal
viability. It would put an end to laws like the 15-week ban on abortion
that is now before the Court in the Dobbs case.
Importantly, as well, the Women's Health Protection Act would put an
end to medically unnecessary restrictions posing as health restrictions
that single out abortion care with one goal in mind: to block and
impede access to safe, needed healthcare--laws like the so-called TRAP
law, or targeted regulation of abortion providers; such as minimum
measurements for room size or hallway width that have no rationale
other than the transparent desire to curtail access; laws that require
providers to offer medically inaccurate information when providing
abortion care, like in Alaska, Kansas, Mississippi, Texas, and West
Virginia, where healthcare professionals are forced to tell women--give
them medically inaccurate information about links between abortion and
breast cancer. It would put an end to a reality where our doctors are
required by law to lie and mislead about the risks of a safe medical
procedure, and it would restore an evidence-based approach to informed
consent.
In short, it would essentially guarantee the right that exists now,
and it will exist until the Supreme Court rules that you can decide
whether and when to have children.
Let us be very clear about what the Women's Health Protection Act
does and what it doesn't do. It does not force any unwilling medical
provider to perform abortions if they wish not to do so. It says that
doctors, nurses, and hospitals may provide abortion care, not that they
must do so.
This measure is an evidence-based, scientific approach to the
protection of women's healthcare, and it restores a future where all of
us are free to make personal decisions that shape our lives, our
futures, and our families with dignity and respect, without political
interference in a decision made between a patient and a doctor, much as
all healthcare decisions should be.
The implications of the Court's draft decision in Dobbs and what we
are expecting from the Court in coming weeks simply can't be overstated
or exaggerated, but it would be foolish to believe that the Court's
conservative supermajority will stop even at Roe.
Justice Alito's draft opinion, even if it is never issued by the
Court, is the road map where this Court will go in the future. It is
permeated with support for the notion that ``fetal personhood,'' a
dangerous theory furthered by States like Louisiana that seek to make
abortion a crime of homicide from the moment of fertilization, if
adopted, the Court's novel, invented theory of personhood could and may
well lead to nationwide prohibitions on abortion. And most recently,
just over the weekend, the minority leader of the Senate has made clear
that in a post-Roe world, a Federal ban on abortion is on the table; so
did State officials who spoke over the weekend.
It is more than a cloud on the horizon; it is an impending, real,
imminent storm upon us. A ban nationwide on abortion, that would
override even the States like Connecticut that are seeking to legislate
protections for women that will make us a safe harbor and haven.
The draft opinion also invites challenges to a host of fundamental
rights that were also not widely recognized in 1868, the moment in
which Justice Alito freezes us in time. He literally freezes
constitutional rights regarding reproductive liberties in that long-
gone moment.
The draft opinion cast invites challenges to a host of fundamental
rights, including contraception, Griswold v. Connecticut; interracial
marriage, Loving v. Virginia; same sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges;
and sexual intimacy between consenting adults, Lawrence v. Texas.
You don't need to be a constitutional scholar to understand the clear
and present danger to American democracy in this draft opinion.
This Court may dress it up, but the results and the reasoning will be
the same: radical extreme fringe--and directly contrary to what three
nominees testified in their confirmation hearing. Oh, we respect
established precedent, of course, stare decisis, fundamental principle.
The legitimacy and credibility of this Court is deeply in peril at
this moment, and our democracy really depends on the credibility and
respect that the American people accord the Supreme Court of the United
States. It has no armies or police force. It has no power of the purse.
Its authority depends directly on trust and credibility, the sense of
legitimacy that the American people accord it.
In the United States, public support for legal access to abortion is
at the highest it has been in two decades, a cruel irony for this
Court. And today the overwhelming majority of voters believe that
everyone should have access to the full range of reproductive
healthcare, including annual screening, birth control, pregnancy tests,
and abortion. It is a matter of health.
And at the same time, millions of Americans across this country are
absolutely terrified. They are angry and horrified about what the
Supreme Court is poised to do because they depend on accessible women's
healthcare. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe and we have taken no
legislative action, we will find ourselves in a nation where young
women of this country, not only have fewer rights than their
grandmothers, they have fewer rights than any of them thought possible.
We have to resolve that we are not backing down, we are not going
away, we are not going back in time. It has never been more urgent to
elect people, Members of this body, who will protect fundamental
rights. And I guarantee that in elections to come, reproductive rights
will be on the ballot. The women

[[Page S2398]]

and men of America will mobilize. They will be galvanized on this issue
because the Women's Health Protection Act will be on the ballot, and we
will have more votes in this body so that Members will be held
accountable for what they do or fail to do. And, ultimately, the
American people and the world are watching.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994,
Mother Teresa famously said:

I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is
abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct
killing of the innocent child.

She went on to say:

Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the
people to love but to use any violence to get what they want.
That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is
abortion.

That was Mother Teresa at the National Prayer Breakfast here in DC in
1994. I agree with those words. Frankly, it is shameful that the
Democrats and pro-abortion activists have resorted to despicable
tactics--some even illegal, some violent--in a last-ditch effort to
intimidate the Justices in the Dobbs case to get the outcome that they
want.
What began with the unprecedented leak of the majority draft opinion
last Monday has quickly devolved into protesting at the Justices'
homes, threatening and disrupting church services, vandalizing
pregnancy resource centers that offer support services to pregnant
moms, and even throwing Molotov cocktails at the offices of a pro-life
organization. Frankly, it is chilling. It is unacceptable. We cannot
let the far left's outrageous behavior obscure the fact that the Dobbs
draft opinion authored by Justice Alito is a triumph of the
Constitution and the rule of law.
There is no right to abortion in the text, in history or structure of
our Nation's founding document, and the draft opinion masterfully
marshals 98 pages of argument and evidence to demonstrate that very
fact.
This watershed decision would be a tremendous victory for the fight
for life and turn the page on a dark chapter of our Nation's history in
which more than 62 million unborn children have been tragically killed.
If the draft opinion stands--and I pray that it does--it transfers that
power from unelected judges and gives it back to the American people,
back to legislatures and elected representatives to enact compassionate
laws that protect unborn babies and their mothers.

If the Democrats exploiting the unprecedented leak of the majority
draft opinion, if it is to stir up the far left base and intimidate
Justices, that is not bad enough, they are now trying to pass a radical
bill to impose abortion on demand without limits across the entire
country, even up to the moment of birth. Leader Schumer has once again
scheduled a vote for tomorrow on the ``Abortion on Demand Until Birth
Act.''
Now, my distinguished colleague from Connecticut used the words
``radical'' and ``extreme'' a number of times in his remarks. Let me
tell you what is radical and extreme about what is going to be voted on
tomorrow. This is barbaric. It is a radical abortion bill that would
mandate that every single State be a late-term abortion State like
California or New York, where unborn children can be brutally aborted
up to the very moment of birth.
Let me say that again, the Democrats would allow abortion up until
the very moment of birth itself. The Democrats' radical abortion bill
would confer special benefits on the predatory abortion industry and
eliminate popular State laws that protect both pre-born children and
their mothers.
Commonsense laws requiring parental involvement in abortions for
minors, health and safety standards for abortion facilities, informed
consent laws, late-term abortion limits, bans on sex-selective or Down
syndrome selective abortions, and conscience protections for doctors
who don't want to perform abortions would be eliminated. That is how
radical this bill is that will be voted on tomorrow.
Under this radical abortion bill, an unhatched sea turtle would have
more protections than an unborn human baby. If you look at Federal law,
if you were to take or destroy the eggs of a sea turtle--now, I said
the eggs, not the hatchlings, that is also a penalty, but the eggs--the
criminal penalties are severe, up to a hundred thousand dollar fine and
a year in prison.
Now, why? Why do we have laws in place to protect the eggs of a sea
turtle or the eggs of eagles? Because when you destroy an egg, you are
killing a pre-born baby sea turtle or a pre-born baby eagle. Yet when
it comes to a pre-born human baby, rather than a sea turtle, that baby
would be stripped of all protections, in all 50 States, under the
Democrats' bill that we will be voting on tomorrow.
Is that the America the left wants? I would ask my Democratic
colleagues if the pre-born child in the womb is not a living human
being, then what is it? Unborn babies feel pain, unborn babies have a
heartbeat, they smile, they yawn, in fact, just last week in a telling
slip of the tongue, President Biden himself admitted that abortion
involves a child. A child. That is correct.
This is, in fact, the truth and the brutal reality of abortion that
every abortion kills a precious child, the Democrats have tried for
decades to avoid admitting this. And the science is clear, it has come
a long way since 1973. It is time for the law to catch up with great
advances that have been made in science and technology, in medicine,
that indisputably show the humanity of an unborn child.
Instead, however, the Democrats' radical abortion bill denies the
science. It would completely erase pre-born children from the law. That
is chilling. Under the Democrats' bill, a pre-born child simply for the
crime of being unwanted, inconvenient, or unplanned could be subjected
to brutal dismemberment procedures in which the unborn child bleeds and
feels excruciating pain as she dies from being pulled apart limb from
limb.
The Democrats' abortion bill would codify an extreme abortion regime
that is aligned with seven Nations that would have the most brutal--the
most brutal laws that relates to abortion, also includes China and
North Korea. That puts the United States in that category if this were
passed.
It would impose abortion up until the moment of birth, without any
limits, in all 50 States. In a nutshell, this radical bill would make
the United States of America one of the most dangerous places in the
world to be a pre-born child.
As I asked my colleagues in the hallway on the Democrats' side, give
us just one restriction you might put in place for abortion, you just
don't hear a response for that.
In tomorrow's vote, I pray that my colleagues will reject this
horrific and barbaric legislation and take a stand for the most
vulnerable among us. As the Justices continue to deliberate in the
Dobbs case, I pray the Court will resist the intimidation tactics of
the far left. By sticking to the Constitution, and repudiating the
unprincipled and abominable Roe and Casey decisions, the Court has the
opportunity to make history and strike a blow for justice for the most
defenseless among us. The American people, those born, and millions yet
unborn, deserve nothing less.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, late last Monday, an unprecedented leak
of a draft Supreme Court document opinion in the case of Dobbs v.
Jackson Women's Health was published.
In reaction, SCOTUSblog, a leading Supreme Court blog stated:

This leak is the gravest, most unforgivable sin.

Chief Justice Roberts called the leak ``absolutely appalling.'' Yet
the White House is mute on this point.
And folks back home in Kansas? Well, they are aghast as well. They
all agree--at least every Kansan I have talked to--this leak is a blow
to the integrity of the Court and a blow to our faith in this hallowed
institution.
In the days since the leak, we have also seen Democrats and their
activists utilize another frequent strategy they deploy when things
don't go their way: violence and disruption.
We have all seen the disgusting multitude of images of pro-life
offices being vandalized and bombed, and we all bear witness of
Catholic masses disrupted on Mother's Day--on Mother's Day, of all
days. Is nothing sacred in

[[Page S2399]]

this country anymore? We have seen the threatening violence at the
personal homes of Supreme Court Justices. Yet, for days, the White
House was quiet. And just like the riots of the summer of 2020 and the
looting that continues today, the White House turns a deaf ear to
violence, and they swallow their tongue when the violence supports
their own agenda.
Listen, these threatening so-called protests at the Justices' homes
are a violation of the law of this land. They are not valid protests.
These are attempts to intimidate and influence the Court to destroy the
independence of this judiciary.
This violence is wrong. It is evil. It is an attack on Christianity.
It is an attack on the faith and values that this Nation were founded
upon. Americans know it. We all feel the hatred.
I have to note, Americans understand the majority leader has provided
no such condemnation but, rather, has decided to once again bring back
his ``Abortion on Demand Act'' to the Senate floor. This bill is the
most egregious, the most horrific attack on the lives of unborn
children and the health of moms in American history. If Democrats had
their way, these babies--these twin babies I delivered more than a
decade ago--could have been aborted the moment prior to the C-section.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade simply returns this emotional issue
back to the States, to the elected voices of the people--no more, no
less.
The Mississippi Dobbs case simply protects life after 15 weeks, when
a baby can feel pain, when a baby can recognize its mom's voice, when a
baby can recognize the voice of its sibling. But let me tell you
exactly what the Democrats' extreme ``Abortion on Demand Act'' would
do. It goes far beyond Roe v. Wade.
This bill invalidates any and all State laws that protect not just
the unborn child but the health and well-being of the mom as well.
It likely leads to American taxpayer dollars funding abortions at
home and around the world.
Next, it is truly an attack on our faith. This bill will tie up
faith-based hospitals in courts for not offering abortion services.
This bill allows sex-based abortions.
It eliminates the requirement for informed consent of the patient or
parental consent.
This bill eliminates conscience protections. As an obstetrician
myself, this hits near and dear to my heart. This bill is an attack on
my faith and an attack on the faith of many doctors and nurses who
refuse to take part in abortions. They would be forced out of their
professions. They would be forced out of medical schools, out of
residency programs. So many aspiring students would decide not to go
into medicine.
This bill is a total disregard to the mother's health by placing no
value on the mom's life and well-being. This radical bill eliminates
the health standards of a surgery center for this procedure to be
performed in a surgery center. In fact, this bill would allow these
services to be offered in a garage or a back-room apartment.
Shockingly, it provides the right to provide abortions to any
healthcare provider--not necessarily a physician but to certified
nurse-midwives, nurse practitioners, a physician assistant. This bill
will lead to the death and infertility of many, many women. This
procedure is not a simple procedure. It should not be placed in the
hands of inexperienced people. This type of procedure is only done
after 4 years of undergraduate, 4 years of medical school, and probably
2 or 3 years of residency. In the most skilled of hands, this type of
procedure can lead to serious loss of life.
Finally and more specifically, this bill strikes down State laws that
restrict telehealth abortions. These are chemical abortions, and they
would become a common means of birth control--again, leading to many,
many more visits to the emergency rooms for these women who are taking
medicines unsupervised.
Finally, I have to correct something one of my friends across the
aisle said. He stated that we from the pro-life community would not
treat women with ectopic pregnancies. Nothing is further from the
truth. This case of Roe v. Wade has nothing to do with treating ectopic
pregnancies. I personally have treated hundreds of women with ectopic
pregnancies. I believe that life begins at conception, but treating an
ectopic pregnancy is a life-threatening situation for the mom. And the
Catholic Church supports the treatment of ectopic pregnancies. But that
is the type of scare tactic my colleagues across the aisle want to use.

Finally, let me just conclude with this: I never imagined I would be
fighting harder to save the lives of moms and babies on the floor of
the Senate than I did in the emergency room or the delivery room in my
obstetrics practice for some 30 years.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. LEE. Mr. President, my colleagues and I are here today to
highlight the fact that our Democratic colleagues have shown the
American people how truly radical they are when it comes to abortion.
The Women's Health Protection Act--what I believe should be better
known as the ``Abortion on Demand Until the Moment of Birth Act''--
casts a vision of abortion in America, one utterly without limitation.
Federalism is one of the truly genius ideas behind the U.S.
Constitution. Federalism means that we make the majority of our
decisions at a more local level rather than at the national level. When
we rely on the principle of federalism, more people across the country
have more reason to be content with the laws they have. People have a
greater say in the legislative process at the local level, which means
they get more of the kind of government they want and less of the kind
of government they don't want.
For nearly the last half-century, the decisions in Roe v. Wade and
Planned Parenthood v. Casey have abused the Constitution by reading
into the Constitution a right that exists nowhere in the Constitution.
These wrongly decided cases have wreaked havoc on public trust in
government, on the republican nature of our government, on the public's
understanding of the Constitution. More gravely, these decisions have
permitted the euphemistically described ``termination'' of 63 million
American lives. That is more than 45 times the number of American lives
lost in war since the founding of our Nation--every war combined.
Forty-five times that. Let that sink in for a minute.
Abortion is a tragedy. It is one that is scarring our Nation's
history because of what it says about how we respect human life. Those
scores of millions of lives represent--each and every one of them--
unique and unrepeatable genetic makeups and identities and potentials.
They represent the loss of Americans of all races, varying physical and
mental abilities, all political affiliations and professions, with many
targeted because of their race, sex, or disability. Their termination
is a loss of ideas, of innovation, and of compassion. Those abortions
erase all potential families and communities. Those abortions represent
the loss of infinite potential, connection, and love. Abortion is a
tragedy that scars our history.
So when I read Justice Alito's draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson
Women's Health Organization, I was elated--elated--because it relies on
federalism and a sound reading of the Constitution to reassert that
there is no constitutional right to an abortion. Just because a
combination of lawyers wearing robes 48 years ago decided that would be
the case does not make it so. Our Constitution is difficult to amend,
and it is deliberately that way. They didn't follow this procedure;
they tried to circumvent it, and they were wrong.
Regulating abortion is a matter reserved for the American people and
their elected representatives, not nine unelected Justices. For that
very reason, a number of people have turned against it, and because
they can't characterize it the way that it actually is, they
mischaracterize it.
Then they go so far as to encourage people to show up to the homes,
the private residences, of the Supreme Court Justices in question.
There is no reason to do this that doesn't involve an implicit threat
of violence. When you show up at someone's home, you are sending an
unmistakable message: We know where you sleep. That is why this is
expressly prohibited under Federal law. There is a Federal criminal law
prohibiting this under 18 U.S.C. section 1507.

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Now, stunningly, the White House--the White House--the President's
personal spokesperson, Jen Psaki, just in the last few hours, has
repeated this charge, has encouraged people to do this, saying:

We certainly continue to encourage protests outside of
judge's homes.

This is wrong, and I call on the President of the United States
personally to undo this. He is encouraging unlawful behavior that is
inherently dangerous and is inherently threatening.
This radical bill that has emerged in the days immediately following
the leak of the Dobbs draft opinion is shrouded in the lie of
protecting women's health while allowing for killing babies by any
means, however gruesome, violent, atrocious, heinous, or cruel, right
up until the moment of birth, preempting any State laws that might
choose to protect life. Those late-term abortions not only kill viable
babies, but they are unreasonably needlessly cruel, and they are
extremely dangerous procedures for the mothers themselves.
Unlimited abortion is also widely unpopular. Only 17 percent of
Americans believe that is the right policy. Among medical
professionals, the feelings are similar. Research shows that over one-
third of OB-GYNs in America would not even refer a patient for an
abortion. But this bill as written would require those same doctors not
only to refer but also to provide abortions or risk their employment,
notwithstanding any ethical objection they may have to it,
notwithstanding any religious objection they may have to it.
By waiving the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, carving it out--the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, as it is known, a religious
liberty protection enacted by an overwhelming supermajority of
Democrats and Republicans--this bill would require hospitals and
healthcare workers to perform abortions in violation of their own
religious convictions.
With this bill, Democrats in the House and the Senate are attempting
to take this issue away from the people, away from the States, and
force their radical abortion agenda on the American people as a whole.
Now, make no mistake, this is their vision for America, fully funded by
the abortion industry. It also perpetuates the tragedy of abortion--one
that is a scar on our country's history.
I hope and pray that State legislatures across the country will
follow the example of the State of Utah and pass laws to protect the
lives of preborn babies and their mothers.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. YOUNG. Mr. President, every year in schools around our country,
students are taught about the Declaration of Independence. This
remarkable document outlines the ideals on which the United States was
founded and the principles on which our government and our very
identity as Americans are based.
Perhaps the best known and most quoted line from the Declaration is
that line about all being endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness.
From our earliest days--when such a concept truly was revolutionary--
to the present day, as Americans, we believe in the dignity and value
of every human person. This is an ideal that we should always aspire
to. And in the spirit of that conviction, I believe that our Nation has
a moral responsibility to protect unborn children--to protect life.

Through amazing advances in science, families and medical
professionals now know that at 15 weeks, a baby can feel pain; a baby
can move fully formed fingers and toes; a baby has a fully developed
heart, pumping 26 quarts of blood per day.
Despite what these advances in modern science tell us, the current
abortion policy in the United States is more in line with communist
China and North Korea. We are only one of seven countries around the
world that allow abortion to take place past the point at which a baby
can feel pain in the womb--one of seven countries in the world. Some
Americans might be surprised to learn that even in progressive Europe,
47 out of 50 countries have limits on abortion after 15 weeks.
Yet the legislation before the U.S. Senate would block States from
protecting the unborn and enshrine late-term abortion into our Federal
law. Going beyond codifying Roe v. Wade, this sweeping legislation
would strike down commonsense, broadly supported laws that many States
have adopted since that decision, including laws meant to protect the
health and safety of mothers. This bill does nothing to protect the
health and safety of women, and it would certainly not protect the
unborn. And it would make these sweeping changes contrary to the wishes
of the majority of Americans.
In fact, recent polling found that 61 percent of Americans say
abortion should be either illegal or that the policy decisions
associated with abortion should be left up to the States.
So I would urge my colleagues to vote against this bill, given our
increased knowledge and understanding of how babies develop, given our
understanding of the science. This is simply the wrong direction to
take public policy.
I also want to take a moment and acknowledge that the issue of
abortion is a very tough one for so many Americans, and, given recent
developments, this is a topic on the minds of many Hoosiers and many
Americans. I understand that. I want to reiterate my commitment to
helping mothers and families choose life and supporting them in that
choice. We must ensure mothers and unborn children are cared for,
loved, and supported, and this includes increasing the resources
available to help women facing unexpected pregnancies. We must support
America's 2,700 pregnancy centers that provide vital services to
millions of people each year at virtually no cost as well as provide
more support for adoptive services.
These steps are vital as we seek to further promote a culture that
promotes values and protects life. Now, let's remember and live up to
that founding American ideal. We believe in the dignity and value of
every human person.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. WICKER. I commend the Senator from Indiana and join him and my
other colleagues in decrying the legislation that we will be asked to
move to the floor tomorrow. But before I speak on the substance of the
bill, it needs to be reiterated why this bill is even before us.
The only reason we are debating this bill today is because of the
extreme and unprecedented breach of protocol that took place at the
Supreme Court. The leaked draft in the Dobbs case was a full-blown
assault on the U.S. Supreme Court and on the independence of our
judiciary. It was an attempt to incite mob pressure against the
Justices, which has, in part, succeeded by inciting pressure against
the Justices in an attempt to bully them into changing their final
votes.
And I do trust, based on the information that we have about the nine
Justices, that that attempt will not be successful.
We saw over the weekend disturbing videos of protesters outside the
homes of Supreme Court Justices. There is growing concern for the
safety of our Supreme Court Justices and the safety of their families.
This is shameful. A Supreme Court Justice should never have to fear
for his or her safety or the safety of their families for doing their
jobs. We, as elected Members of the Congress, are subject to public
opinion. The Supreme Court is not supposed to be subject to public
opinion and should never have to fear for their safety.
The leak and the mob reaction should be condemned by both parties in
the strongest possible terms, and yet there have been very few voices
on the other side of the aisle addressing this matter. Certainly, the
majority leader of the Senate has not said a word about the outrage of
the leak or the mob protests, nor has the President of the United
States.
What happened to respect and care for our institutions?
Instead of protecting the Court, our Democratic friends seem to be,
whether inadvertently or not, legitimizing this attack on the Court by
moving to consider extreme legislation which is out of touch with the
mainstream of Americans.
So now let me speak briefly about the legislation. It has been said
that

[[Page S2401]]

this is a mere codification of the Court's holding in Roe v. Wade. That
is, in fact, not the case. Instead, the bill that we will be asked to
move to the floor tomorrow is an attempt to expand abortion
dramatically across this country, to expand abortion in a way that only
a small handful of the most repressive governments on the face of the
Earth permit.
The bill would eliminate even the most modest protections for unborn
children across all 50 States. It would force all 50 States to allow
gruesome late-term abortions that even the political left all over
Europe have long ago outlawed.
As my friend from Indiana said earlier, some 47 European countries
generally ban abortion after the first 15 weeks. Banning abortion after
14 weeks are our allies of France and Spain; banning abortion after 13
weeks, Finland; banning abortion after 12 weeks, Germany, Belgium,
Italy, Switzerland--certainly not governments that are thought of as
prisoners of the extreme right. The nation of Portugal generally bans
abortion after 10 weeks.
Of course, as we know, the Mississippi law that brought this case to
the Supreme Court, the Dobbs case, has a slightly more permissive
provision than even these friends that I just mentioned from Western
Europe. It would be a 15-week ban.
But this bill that we are asked to vote on tomorrow, which certainly
will fail, would push America further outside of the global mainstream
than we already are--and we already are way outside this mainstream.
Because of scientific advances, we know that an unborn child's
heartbeat begins at 6 weeks. We know a child can feel pain as early as
20 weeks. Many of us, including my wife and I, have put the sonograms
of our grandchildren, have displayed them on our refrigerators in our
homes. What we know about the development of children--their faces,
their eyelashes--has brought about a change in the minds of many
Americans.
In 1996, 56 percent of Americans called themselves pro-choice. Only
33 percent said they were pro-life. But because of science and because
of those sonograms and because of what we know about their ability to
feel pain--their movements, their eyes blinking, their eyelashes--today
the two sides are just about evenly split, pro-choice and pro-life. But
even those who identify themselves as pro-choice are deeply opposed to
late-term abortions. And make no mistake about it, if somehow the
Schumer bill tomorrow were to pass, late-term abortions would be legal
in all 50 States.
Eighty-one percent of Americans think that late-term abortions should
be illegal. Our friends on the Democratic side should think about that.
This bill goes against 81 percent of American public opinion in that
regard. Sixty-five percent say abortions should be illegal in the
second trimester--not the third trimester, in the second trimester--65
percent of Americans.
I hope our Democratic friends across the aisle think about that
before they vote for this extreme piece of legislation brought by the
Democratic leader, which would put us in league with the People's
Republic of China with all of their respect for life, with North Korea
with its deplorable record of respecting human life. With those two
countries and five others on the extreme left, it would put us in
league with them. That is not where the American people want us to be.
If a State has a 24-hour waiting period, for example, the Schumer
bill tomorrow would outlaw that. Taxpayer funding of abortion, the Hyde
amendment, which prohibits this and has done so for decades and
decades, would be abolished. The parental rights of teenage girls to
have a say and to be able to counsel their daughters on the pivotal
decision about having an abortion would be eliminated by this.
Religious exemptions. A practicing Catholic, who deep in their soul
understands this to be infanticide, would be required, if they are a
physician, to perform an abortion with no religious exemption.
Is that what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are hoping
for? It is what they would get if the Schumer bill were to pass.
This is not a serious attempt at consensus building. This bill simply
reflects, regrettably, the iron grip that Planned Parenthood has on one
of our major political parties in this country.
We will reject this effort tomorrow. I commend my colleagues who
intend to stand with the American people and vote no on this attempt to
rank us with the worst regimes on the face of the globe and impose
late-term abortions on the entire country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I am on the floor here today to address
the same topic as my colleague who just spoke. And before I jump into
prepared remarks, I wanted to offer just a few points of rebuttal
because on this topic it seems so frequently that we all talk past each
other and don't generally listen to one another.
The Women's Health Protection Act of 2022, which I lead with Senator
Blumenthal, would, indeed, codify Roe v. Wade, but it would
additionally give clarity to the States about what further restrictions
they could put in place.
I hail from the State of Wisconsin, where our State legislature, over
many, many years, has brought forth all sorts of measures--some of
which have been signed into law, many of which have been challenged in
court, and some of which have been vetoed--but these are restrictions
on access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare, including abortion
care, that limit access, that make it much more difficult, which is
what Roe v. Wade intended to prevent. They have nothing to do with the
health or the life of the mother. In fact, in some cases, they actually
do harm to maternal life and health.
There are measures in places across the United States that deal with
the corridor width of clinics--the corridor width. It would force, if
these laws were to go into effect, many clinics to have to either
reconstruct themselves or move. This is clearly something meant to
limit access.
There are laws and bills that relate to admitting privileges at local
hospitals, which are absolutely not medically necessary and will allow
all the area hospitals to team up to deny those privileges, and then
the clinic won't have a physician able to work there. There are 24-hour
waiting periods.
I listened to what my colleague had to say about the blanket
overturning of Roe v. Wade. It would mean, when a woman's life is in
jeopardy at some point in her pregnancy, she wouldn't have the ability
to save her life and her reproductive health because she wouldn't have
access to abortion care.
Then to characterize this bill as extreme, in my mind, is so opposite
the truth because, to me, what is extreme is forcing, say, a teen to
bring a rapist's child to term or forcing a young woman to give birth
to her sibling in cases of incest.
My colleague talked about the polls. I don't know what he was looking
at. He was talking about pro-choice versus anti-choice. Everything I
have seen shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans believes
that Roe v. Wade is settled law and should remain in place and that
only a small percentage believes it should be overturned in its
entirety.
In going on to my prepared remarks, I rise today to join my colleague
Senator Richard Blumenthal in support of the Women's Health Protection
Act of 2022--a bill that would protect a woman's right to access safe
abortion care throughout the United States, no matter where she lives,
without unnecessary and unwanted political interference.
Congress is responsible for enforcing every American's fundamental
rights guaranteed by our Constitution. Throughout history, when States
have passed laws that make it harder or even impossible to exercise
those rights, Congress has taken action to put in place Federal
protections.
I want to remind my colleagues of this responsibility. I also want to
share a story from one of my constituents.
Angela and Abby, her wife, knew they wanted to start a family, so
they sought treatment at a fertility clinic in Wisconsin. In 2019,
after years of trying, Angela became pregnant. It was a pregnancy they
had wanted more than anything, but Angela soon found out that she had
what is called a molar pregnancy. This occurs when a tumor

[[Page S2402]]

forms instead of a healthy placenta. Her pregnancy was not viable. Her
doctors moved quickly, and Angela had a safe and legal abortion.
She wrote to me earlier this week:

Had abortion been illegal, I would have died.

Access to a safe abortion saved Angela's life. For others, an
abortion kept a family out of poverty or allowed them to complete their
educations or start careers. Abortions have protected women from being
tied to their rapists and have spared them of the emotional and
physical trauma of carrying an unviable pregnancy to term.
I was only 10 years old when Roe v. Wade was decided. For 50 years,
just about, this decision has stood. In the words of Justice Kavanaugh,
it is ``settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court,'' but, apparently,
precedent means nothing. Access to safe and legal abortion is under
direct attack as an activist Supreme Court appears poised to legislate
from the bench and take a constitutionally protected right away from
tens of millions of Americans.
For women like Angela, the gravity of this draft decision from the
Supreme Court cannot be overstated. Americans can remember when back
alley abortions killed and sterilized women across the country. This
decision, if finalized, will not stop abortions from happening; it will
only prevent safe abortions from happening. It will disproportionately
impact poor women and women of color, who will not have the privilege
of making their own healthcare decisions. If Roe is overturned, 13
States would immediately ban abortions, and others, of course, would
move to do so.
If Roe is overturned and we don't pass the Women's Health Protection
Act, Wisconsin women will be taken back to the mid-1800s. What do I
mean by that? We have a law on our books in Wisconsin which
criminalizes abortion procedures. If Roe is overturned, doctors in
Wisconsin would be charged with felonies for performing abortions and
face up to 6 years in prison and $10,000 in fines. The rights of
victims of rape and incest would be taken away. The right for women to
choose for themselves and their families would be taken away.
I sure am not taking women in Wisconsin back to 1849, and we cannot
allow an activist Supreme Court to leave this generation of women
behind with fewer rights than their mothers and their grandmothers
enjoyed.
The Women's Health Protection Act is the only bill that can put an
end to the restrictive State laws that have already put thousands of
women in jeopardy. The legislation meets the urgent need to protect the
provider, patient relationship; to protect the healthcare professionals
who provide care; and to protect the freedom and constitutional rights
of women to access this care.
I believe a woman's right to choose is protected under the
Constitution, and so does a clear majority of Americans want Roe v.
Wade to be upheld. It is our responsibility to take action for women
like Angela and on behalf of the American people.
I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the motion to proceed to the
Women's Health Protection Act of 2022.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. SMITH. I thank Senator Baldwin for her thoughtful remarks.
Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Women's Health
Protection Act, and I urge my colleagues to join us in standing up for
fundamental rights to freedom, autonomy, and self-determination.
Make no mistake: That is what this vote is about--who has the power;
who has the freedom to decide when your own health, livelihood, and
life are on the line.
There is nothing more American than the values of freedom and
individual autonomy; yet the U.S. Supreme Court is about to declare
that women in this country are not guaranteed the freedom to make their
own private decisions about abortion.
Justice Alito, Mitch McConnell, Senate Republicans, and radical
Republican State legislators around the country believe that they
should have the power--that they know better than American women, whose
lives and stories they will never know.
To that, I say: How dare they?
When I worked at Planned Parenthood, I saw firsthand the capacity of
women to make good decisions about their health, their bodies, and
their lives. To suggest otherwise is insulting to the dignity of women
as full, adult human beings and as equal citizens of this Nation, but
that is where we are. Justice Alito's draft opinion is a wake-up call
and a call to action. Reading his opinion was like a gut punch, but it
was not a surprise, and it didn't just happen.
This is the result of a decades' long campaign by Republicans and
their dark money donors to put anti-choice Justices on the Supreme
Court, to overturn Roe, and to strip women of their constitutional
rights. This is why this vote is so important. For the first time in my
living memory, the Supreme Court is about to take away a fundamental
constitutional right, and it is important that Americans see who is on
their side and who is responsible for this.
Extremist Republicans have been working for this goal for decades;
yet, now that this moment is almost here, they keep trying to change
the subject. In fact, they want to talk about anything but, including
when they spread misleading information about what the Women's Health
Protection Act would really do, which is to put the protections of Roe
into statute.
So why are Republicans running from this issue after having
campaigned on it for years?
Well, it is because Americans don't want to overturn Roe, and anti-
choice Republicans know this. They know that they are on the wrong side
of history and on the wrong side of public opinion and of over half the
American electorate. That is why this vote is so important. We will not
let them dodge their responsibility for this outrageous attack on
women's freedom.
Now, some Republicans are saying that this is all a bit of a tempest
in a teapot. They say: Don't worry. All the Supreme Court is about to
do is to hand power back for the States to decide on abortion.
Colleagues, do not believe this. The American people deserve to know
where this goes next.
Today, we are fighting on the Senate floor to preserve in law the
basic protections of Roe v. Wade, but extremist Republicans have been
clear. Their end goal is to secure a nationwide ban on abortion. As
Senator McConnell said this weekend: It is not a secret that the Senate
Republican caucus is opposed to reproductive rights and that, if Senate
Republicans win the majority, a nationwide ban is ``worthy of debate.''
That is the post-Roe future if Republicans are in charge.
Even though a majority of Americans in all States believes that
abortion should be legal, Republicans have been clear that a nationwide
ban is their goal. At the same time, Republican State legislators are
brazenly moving forward. They are moving forward with extremist
policies that go way beyond depriving women of their essential
freedoms--they punish and criminalize women.
Take, for example, a Missouri mother of two, facing a high-risk
pregnancy, who travels to Illinois for an abortion because she is
worried about being there for her existing children. Missouri
Republicans want her to be labeled as a felon when she returns homes.

Take a woman in Louisiana who has an abortion after her IUD failed
and she had an unexpected pregnancy. Louisiana Republicans want her
convicted of homicide.
Take the Texas woman, who hoped and prayed for years for a baby, only
to have her doctor find a fatal fetal anomaly at 22 weeks. Texas
Republicans want her to carry that pregnancy for another 18 weeks, no
matter the risk to her life and no matter the trauma she faces as
people congratulate her on her upcoming baby when she knows she will
never know that child.
So I say again, how dare these Republicans think that they know
better than the women who live these stories.
This is the post-Roe world that Republicans want, and we won't stand
for it. If you think this struggle doesn't affect you or someone you
care about, think again.
One in four American women will have an abortion--women who are
Democrats, Republicans, Independents, women from all places and all
religious faiths. For these women, abortion isn't

[[Page S2403]]

about politics; it is about healthcare. Most of them never expected to
be part of this statistic, but life doesn't always go as we plan. Every
day, women deal with situations they never imagined, and they deserve
the freedom and the autonomy to decide for themselves what to do and
what is best for them.
With this vote to pass the Women's Health Protection Act, we are
showing whom we stand with and what we believe--the fundamental freedom
of people to make the best decisions for their health, their families,
and their futures.
Thank you.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the
following Senators to be permitted to speak prior to the scheduled
vote: myself for 20 minutes, Senator Toomey for 5 minutes, and Senator
Brown for 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I am not sure I will use all 20 minutes,
but you never know on a subject this important and this vital to women
and families across the America. It may take a little more than a few
minutes to talk about this issue, and that is that 70 percent of
Americans believe that we should not overturn Roe v. Wade or a woman's
right to her own reproductive choice.
This is so critical that 70 percent of Americans are in agreement.
This was part of a Pew Research report. Twenty-five percent don't
agree, and about 5 percent are not sure what they think. But anybody
who thinks this isn't about settled law or about mainstream views in
America is wrong because it is about almost 50 years of settled law,
and it is about what mainstream Americans believe are their
constitutional rights. That is why it is so important for us to listen
to those Americans and their long-held beliefs, starting with the laws
that we got from England and baked into our Constitution, the right to
privacy.
Yes, people are right. The word ``privacy'' isn't mentioned, but it
is in various amendments believed to be rights within the Constitution.
But we have a Supreme Court made up of men and Ivy League institutions
who now discuss in a decision--we don't really know exactly where it
came from--this notion that privacy and a woman's right to her own
reproductive choice somehow doesn't deserve stare decisis--that is,
predicated on previous law--and somehow isn't in the Constitution.
Well, I have got news for a lot of people. If you have a Supreme
Court that is going to take a run and run from privacy in the
Constitution, as this decision does--as this decision does--it barely
mentions the case law predicated that made decisions about a woman's
right to privacy based on those issues. It is barely mentioned.
Now, I am sure it is because those Justices decided, if they had to
agree that privacy was really there as a right, which we as Americans
believe it is--against the government's unwarranted search and seizure
on you, the government spying on you, the government taking action
against you that has not been followed in law--you know, I spent 2
years on the Judiciary Committee, and I really couldn't believe this.
Somebody told me--actually, a conservative judge passed this
information on. If you ask them whether they believe in Roe v. Wade or
settled law, they will tell you: Oh, yeah, it has been there. But if
you ask them whether they believe in rights to privacy enumerated in
the Constitution and do they believe in the penumbra of rights that
basically give us this right that Griswold v. Connecticut, that Casey
v. Planned Parenthood was decided on, a true, true conservative who
wasn't going to uphold the law will tell you they didn't believe in
that.
So that is the conundrum. We had a bunch of the smartest guys in the
room from Ivy League schools who came here and hoodwinked the Senate,
saying things like: Oh, I will follow or I think stare decisis is very
important. Yet the same people are about to put their name on a
document that says we don't really think there is any strong holding
here. We don't think there is any strong case. Well, there is a case.
There is a case for privacy.
I remember my first days on the Judiciary Committee, when John
Ashcroft, then-Attorney General, tried to come before the committee and
make light of the fact that the government was spying on Americans.
When I said to him: Mr. Ashcroft, this is a serious issue of the FBI
and others using software technology to spy on the lives of Americans,
he said: You remind me of a joke.
I couldn't believe it. I remind him of a joke? And he went on to tell
the story about how a little boy sat on Santa Claus's lap, and he said:
I know whether you have been bad or good. And he says: Oh, you are not
a Santa Claus; you are John Ashcroft. He thought this was hilarious,
and I reminded him that not everybody in America was laughing.
Now look at where we are, 20-some years later, fast-forwarding on the
rights to privacy that we have in the United States and how every day
we have to fight for those rights to privacy.
I know the Presiding Officer knows this because he has joined me on
these issues, particularly as it relates to children's online privacy
issues and so many other issues that this body and this institution are
going to have to decide on, but Americans know--70 percent of them
agree that this is a mainstream, settled issue and now are shocked to
find that, somehow, somebody is proposing something to overturn it.
I am not even sure people understand. I just had a conversation with
somebody who said: Oh, you mean they are going to give some rights to
men in determining the pregnancy and some rights for women?
I said: No. They are talking about making abortion illegal. They are
talking about passing a law that takes the reproductive rights and
choices of women and turns them back into the dark ages.
This person got it right away. They said: Who do you want caring for
women--someone in a back alley or a trained healthcare professional?
That is really what we are talking about here. American healthcare
technology has come to the point that women who do not want an unwanted
pregnancy can have the choice of a morning after pill. There are lots
of different ways for them to deal with planned and unplanned
pregnancies. Yet this institution wants to tell them, by the Supreme
Court, that they don't have a privacy right; that it doesn't exist;
that Connecticut v. Griswold, which, if you think about it, was about
contraception--it was really about whether women at the time had the
right to have contraception and plan pregnancies.
I know the Presiding Officer knows about this time period. We both
come from big families. We know all about big families.
All of a sudden, in that decision, in Connecticut v. Griswold, the
right to privacy--the penumbra of rights within the Constitution--was
determined to say that women have the right to control their bodies and
have contraception. The fact that this is not the basis of upholding
the law after almost 50 years--I can't even explain how unbelievable it
is that somebody would not fully discuss and cite it. And if they don't
believe in the penumbra--but I am guessing the reason they don't want
to even discuss the penumbra of rights is because they know darn well
we live in an age and time in which privacy needs utmost protection,
and individuals need people like us to be voting for things that are
going to protect individuals' rights of privacy in the era of big
government, of big corporations, of undue intrusions in, yes, even our
own healthcare. We need protection.
We are now here talking, though, about overturning these rights that
affect the healthcare lives of women. We are not talking about the
healthcare of men. We are not sitting here--I can't tell you how many
times in the last 15 years that I have been here that every budget
decision, every major almost-going-over-the-fiscal-cliff when John
Boehner was the Speaker--oh, if we don't have a vote to get rid of a
woman's right to choose--every budget issue down to the last wire is
always about whether you are going to get rid of a woman's right to
choose. It has been the fight of the other side of the aisle all along
to try to say they are going to control women's bodies and women's
healthcare choices.
We know that you are not going to get rid of abortions if you pass
this

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law. You are not going to get rid of them. When we passed Connecticut
v. Griswold and Casey, that is when we basically went down the road of
making sure that women weren't killed in back alley abortions. We
actually saved lives of women, and we started getting people to take
care of planned pregnancies and make progress of having people on
contraception.
We are not going to get rid of abortions by listening to the Supreme
Court or passing something. They will happen. It will go back to any
back alley approach or other issues to try to deal with it.
So I ask my colleagues: What are you thinking when you are advocating
for a return to pre-Roe? What exactly do you think is going to happen
in the United States of America? I can tell you, you are going to leave
women without the ability to control their own bodies, without the
ability for them and their doctor to make decisions.
So many of these issues are about that woman and her doctor making a
decision. You know, we make laws to deal with the parameters and the
exceptions to the rule. This is a process by which we have laid out
what we think is reproductive healthcare choice and then directed
people to deal with their physician on these issues. But the other side
would like to take these issues to the extreme and say that women have
gone too far on their own healthcare choices.
I guarantee you, there are many times where it is a decision between
the life of the mother and the life of a child. Do we really want
government making that decision, or do we want the physician and the
individual woman making that decision?
I ask my colleagues: Do you believe the right to privacy exists
within the Constitution or are you like the Supreme Court? You don't
believe in the decisions of previous Supreme Court Justices? You don't
think they have solid standing because you don't believe that privacy
is a long-held view of the United States? I guarantee you, it is
fundamental to who we are as a country, and it is fundamental to who we
are today and why individual women should have that right and have that
protection.
But people aren't even thinking about the broader impacts. Secretary
Yellen testified today:

Eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when
and whether to have children would have very damaging effects
on the economy and would set women back decades. Roe v. Wade
. . . enabled many women to finish school and increase their
earning potential.

No one has even talked about exactly how this would work. I am
confused about how it would work State by State. I will also tell you,
this Supreme Court really--I don't even know what to say about it
except for when I interviewed one of the Supreme Court Justices, who I
am pretty sure is making this decision--I said: This is very important
to the State of Washington because the people of the State of
Washington have voted to make Roe v. Wade the law of our State.
And he said: Oh, Senator, Senator, you are mistaken.
I said: I am mistaken about my State, about what happened?
He said: You mean your legislature voted.
I said: No, sir, the people in my State voted by initiative in the
nineties to codify these rights into our State law because that is what
the people of my State believe.
So the arrogance of this Court, you can see, continues not to listen
to the views of 70 percent of Americans.
I believe that you should be able to ask Justices what their judicial
opinion and philosophy is. They should tell you. If these Justices did
not believe that this was the law of the land and should be upheld, if
they didn't believe in these rights of privacy, they should have told
everybody clearly.
But it is hardly in the mainstream view of Americans.
Tomorrow we will have a chance to say whether we believe in these
privacy rights, whether we believe in a woman's reproductive choices,
whether we believe that 50 years--just about 50 years--and 70 percent
of the American people are worth listening to. I would listen and pass
this legislation tomorrow because I guarantee you, if it is not just
this privacy right, why are you going to trust them on any other
privacy decision in the future if they are not going to be fighting to
uphold your privacy rights on women's reproductive health?
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.