[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 116 (Thursday, July 14, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3289-S3296]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Inflation

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, yesterday morning, June inflation numbers 
were released. And, as usual with this administration, the news was not 
good.
  Inflation rose once again in June to 9.1 percent--the highest 
inflation since November of 1981. November of 1981. I was in college 
the last time inflation was this bad.
  Americans are suffering. Everywhere Americans turn, they are being 
asked to pay more--more for cleaning supplies, more for gas, more for 
health insurance, more for groceries.
  A new analysis yesterday from the Joint Economic Committee found that 
inflation will cost the average American household a staggering $718 a 
month over the next year--$718 per month. That will happen even if 
prices stop going up tomorrow--$718 per month, more than $8,600 for the 
year. No working family can afford that.
  A major reason that we are in this crisis is because of Democrats' 
decision to flood the economy with unnecessary government money with 
their so-called American Rescue Plan Act. And, unfortunately, there is 
no easy solution to the crisis they helped create. But the first 
thing--the first thing--should be to do no more harm.
  Incredibly, however, Democrats are currently attempting to double 
down on the strategy that helped create this crisis in the first place 
by passing a version of the Build Back Better tax-and-spending spree 
they tried to force through last year.
  Apparently, Democrats think more government spending--like the 
government spending that helped get us into this mess--plus new taxes 
are a good solution for an inflation crisis and an economy teetering on 
the brink of recession.
  Madam President, if Democrats want to help our country get out of 
this inflation crisis, more unnecessary government spending and new 
taxes are the exact wrong way to go about it. In fact, the biggest 
thing the Democrats can do to avoid making this crisis worse is by 
flooding the economy with more unnecessary government money.
  After that, the biggest thing Democrats and the administration in 
particular can do to help alleviate this crisis is to unleash American 
energy production. I don't need to tell anyone that energy prices have 
been a major contributor to our inflation crisis. Gas prices are up 
nearly 60 percent--60 percent. The current cost of a gallon of regular 
gas is $4.60--almost double what it was when President Biden took 
office just 18 months ago--and the price of diesel is even worse, which 
is a big concern for farmers and ranchers back home in South Dakota and 
around the country, not to mention all of our truckers. Electricity--
that is up 13 percent. Utility gas service is up 38 percent. Americans 
everywhere are feeling the pinch.
  Of course, high gas prices and utility prices don't just cause direct 
pain at the pump; they also contribute to higher prices across the 
economy, which means that lowering energy prices is one of the most 
important things we can do to help ease high prices on a variety of 
goods. The way to lower energy prices is to unleash American energy 
production, including and especially conventional energy production. 
Unfortunately, the President has shown and continues to show a clear 
hostility to conventional energy production despite the fact that our 
economy cannot function without conventional energy.
  Now, I am a longtime supporter of alternative energy, from wind to 
biofuels, and I come from a State that derives a substantial portion of 
its electricity generation from wind. In fact, in 2021, over 50 percent 
of our State's power generation came from wind and 30 percent came from 
hydroelectric power on the Missouri River. But if it weren't for 
traditional fossil fuels backing up that generation, we would be left 
in the dark.
  The fact is, no matter how much Democrats might wish it were 
otherwise, alternative energy technology has simply not advanced to the 
point where our country can rely exclusively on alternative energy. 
That means that, unless we want Americans to be permanently buried 
under the pain of high gas prices, we need to invest in responsible 
production of oil and natural gas.
  We have tremendous natural resources here at home, and the ability to 
extract those resources is a far more environmentally responsible way 
than frequently happens in other countries. But unleashing American 
production is going to require action from the President, who, despite 
the current energy price crisis, continues to display hostility to 
domestic production. He touts the number of leases oil and gas 
companies have available, but he fails to mention that just 3 months 
ago his administration made it harder for oil and gas companies to 
actually make use of the leases in question by increasing the 
regulatory burden for environmental reviews. On top of this, thousands 
of drilling permits, which are required to actually begin drilling on 
oil and gas leases, are currently stuck in the approval process at the 
Department of the Interior.
  At the beginning of this month, the administration released a new 
offshore drilling plan which includes an option to offer, at most, a 
paltry 11 new leases over the next 5 years. It also leaves the door 
open for zero new leases--zero. If this proposed 5-year plan doesn't 
make it clear that the President isn't interested in increasing our 
domestic energy production, I don't know what does.
  Madam President, I could go on. I could mention the administration's 
proposed SEC climate-disclosure rules that are designed to discourage 
investment in conventional energy or the President's quest to increase 
taxes on domestic oil and gas production or Democrats' efforts to 
impose a new fee--or tax--on methane that could cost consumers an 
additional $35 billion to $69 billion annually, but I will leave it 
there.
  Madam President, I hope--I really hope--that the President and his 
administration will take a good, hard look at their hostility to 
conventional energy production. Inflation is at 9.1 percent--9.1 
percent. American families are paying nearly twice what they were 
paying in gas prices just 18 months ago, and utility gas prices have 
increased sharply.
  Unless Democrats want Americans to be facing staggering prices at the 
pump and on store shelves for the long term, the administration needs 
to start encouraging domestic production of conventional energy. That 
means not just approving leases but making it easier for oil and gas 
companies to actually develop those leases and produce oil and natural 
gas. It means encouraging, not discouraging, investment in responsible 
conventional production and infrastructure like natural gas pipelines. 
It means giving up attempts to discourage domestic energy production 
with new and higher taxes or burdensome ESG regulations.
  American families are struggling, Madam President. The President can 
actually do something to help them, and I sincerely hope that he will.
  I yield the floor.

[[Page S3290]]

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Minnesota.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 4504

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today in support of the 
Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act--something that Senator Cortez 
Masto, our colleague from Nevada, is leading.
  I do want to take a moment, however, to note that there are many 
things we need to do to reduce costs. I appreciated the words of my 
colleague from the neighboring State of South Dakota, and I think he is 
well aware that pharmaceutical prices are No. 1 on the minds of people 
in many of our States. I ask Republicans to join us in pushing Medicare 
to finally negotiate lifting the ban so we can negotiate less expensive 
drugs under Medicare Part D--something that every Democrat is committed 
to in our caucus and we hope to get done in the next month.
  I also note that the President recently came out for E15--something 
Senator Thune and I have worked together on for years, and that is now 
in place as one competitive fuel that should help--not alleviate 
everything but be a major help--and the release of the oil from the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve and so many other areas where we are 
working together.
  I don't think anyone thought we could emerge from a 2-year pandemic 
and everything was going to be the same. Obviously, there is work left 
together for the country to bring down costs, and that is on all of our 
minds.
  Madam President, also on our minds is what has recently happened with 
the Supreme Court and the decision in the Dobbs case. Twenty days ago--
only 20 days ago, and you can see everything that has happened since 
that time--the Supreme Court issued a ruling shredding nearly five 
decades of precedent protecting a woman's right to make her own 
healthcare decisions. Now women are at the mercy of a patchwork of 
State laws governing their ability to access reproductive care, leaving 
them with fewer rights than their moms and their grandmas.
  In just 20 days, over 20 States have laws in place that could be used 
to restrict access to abortion. Twenty-five States in total are 
expected to ban abortion in the days and the weeks ahead. But, 
colleagues, I am afraid the worst is yet to come.
  Legislation was introduced in Missouri to allow private citizens to 
act as vigilantes and sue people who help women cross State lines for 
reproductive care--vigilantes, just like we saw in Texas. In Texas, 
legislators are working on a bill to criminalize businesses that 
provide resources simply to help their workers obtain abortion services 
in other States.
  These proposals don't just hurt those in need of care; they are also 
creating an uncertain environment for doctors and straining resources 
at clinics in States like Minnesota where reproductive rights are 
protected, two major States in the Midwest--that is it--Illinois and 
Minnesota.
  I spoke on the phone with the head of the Red River Women's Clinic 
out of Fargo, ND, who had to resort to a GoFundMe page to get the money 
she needs to move her clinic across the river to Minnesota to a safe 
place.
  Planned Parenthood in Moorhead, MN--I met with them only a week ago 
about the services and the work they are doing right now.
  In Montana, clinics have already begun requiring proof of residency 
from women seeking abortion pills because they are afraid they might be 
pursued by out-of-State prosecutors.
  Of course, we should never settle for a situation where women in 
Minnesota have different rights than women in Missouri or where women 
in Illinois have different rights than women in Texas, but with so many 
extreme Republicans racing to State capitals to be the first to take 
away women's rights, it is clear we must explicitly protect the right 
to travel to other States to access reproductive care. We don't have to 
imagine why this might matter. We don't need to conjure up 
hypotheticals. We already know what has happened.
  Think about the heartbreaking, enraging story about the 10-year-old 
girl in Ohio who had to go to Indiana to get an abortion after she was 
impregnated by her rapist. When that story came out last week, some 
people doubted it. Now, in clear print in the criminal complaint out of 
the State of Ohio, we saw yesterday that, yes, this happened. This man 
raped a 10-year-old girl, and she got pregnant, and then she couldn't 
even get the care she needed--at age 10--to get an abortion. She had to 
go across State lines to the State of Indiana just to get her care.
  Should the next little 10-year-old's right or 12-year-old's right or 
14-year-old's right to get the care that she desperately needs be put 
in jeopardy? What about her mom? What about her doctor? Where will this 
end?
  That is why we must not just codify Roe v. Wade into law with the 
bill that we voted on just last month, but we must also pass 
the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act by unanimous consent right 
now. That is a bill that our great colleague Senator Cortez Masto is 
leading.

  Our bill protects women and girls from being punished for traveling 
to another State to access abortion services. It also ensures doctors 
won't be punished for providing reproductive care outside their home 
States. As clinics across the country struggle to navigate this post-
Roe nightmare landscape, they should not have to add to their list of 
worries whether they will be criminally prosecuted for serving patients 
in a nearby State. This is an issue, as I noted, that hits close to 
home because of Minnesota being in the neighborhood that includes the 
States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin, all of which 
have various issues with reproductive healthcare.
  The freedom to travel cannot be an empty promise. That is why the 
bill gives the Department of Justice, as well as women and doctors, the 
power to sue people who infringe on the right to travel for healthcare. 
Women in States with abortion bans already face enough obstacles to 
care. We can't wait to see what anti-choice State legislators 
criminalize next. We have to act now.
  All of this comes down to one question: Who should get to make the 
personal decisions for a woman or for a 10-year-old girl? Should it be 
her family? Should it be a woman herself? Or should it be politicians, 
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who supported these 
Justices, put them in place in the Supreme Court, and got us to where 
we are right now? I think the answer is clear.
  Today, each and every one of my colleagues has the opportunity to 
show where they stand. Will we come together to protect this essential 
right to seek healthcare across State lines for the sake of the women 
and, yes, the young girls across this country? I hope we do.
  I thank Senator Cortez Masto for her leadership.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I thank the senior Senator from 
Minnesota for her remarks and for what brings us to the floor today.
  This is the first time in American history that a fundamental 
constitutional right has been stripped away from the American people--
and especially American women--by the Supreme Court of the United 
States.
  In Dobbs, the U.S. Supreme Court demolished 50 years of precedent--
half a century of Democratic- and Republican-appointed Justices 
upholding a constitutional right to privacy that has now been 
obliterated by the U.S. Supreme Court, a fundamental right that has 
been upheld over and over again by Justices appointed, as I said, by 
Presidents of both sides of the aisle.
  Madam President, if you had said to me when I was in law school in 
the early nineties that this day would ever come, that the U.S. Supreme 
Court, using a radical--a radical--method of constitutional 
interpretation called originalism that was invented basically when I 
was in law school--if you had told me that there would be a President 
of the United States who would appoint a majority of the Supreme Court 
with that radical interpretation, I would never have believed it. I 
would never have believed it. And that is what happened because of the 
Justices Donald Trump put on the Supreme Court.

  I want people to hear me who are Republicans in this country and this 
Chamber. Look it up. I know it is called originalism, but it started in 
the 1980s and started in the 1990s. It is not the way our Constitution 
has been interpreted all these years.
  This is radical. It is not conservative. In no sense is this a 
conservative decision. And it has happened, and now

[[Page S3291]]

Americans no longer have a constitutional right to privacy to make 
their own health and reproductive choices.
  I can tell you, I read every one of these opinions. In Justice 
Alito's opinion for the majority, he never even had the courage to 
grapple with the nature of this fundamental right, what stripping it 
away would mean for millions of Americans and especially millions of 
American women, like my three daughters. Instead, what he said was--
what he wrote was: If it wasn't a right in 1868, it is not a right 
today. That was the depth of his analysis--an opinion dripping with 
hostility and a cavalier attitude toward what he was stripping away 
from the American people.
  I know. I live in a State where there are people who hold very 
sincere beliefs on both sides of this question. This is a question that 
is hard for many Americans. That is why I have always believed the 
right place for this decision to be made is by a woman with her doctor, 
not by the State, not by a State saying that you have to carry your 
pregnancy to term without any regard for the individual circumstances 
that you might face. Instead, as a result of this Court's decision, 
State laws to ban abortion that are literally from the 1800s are coming 
back into being. Politicians are writing new State laws to force a 
woman to carry a pregnancy to term, as I said, without exception. Think 
about that. Even for women and children who have been raped, like that 
10-year-old girl in Ohio who had to travel to Indiana for an abortion--
she is living in a State where they are talking about passing a 
personhood bill.
  Soldiers serving--and I have heard in my own State from women who 
have served in the Armed Forces who are worried about women who are 
serving in the Armed Forces today on U.S. military bases in States like 
Mississippi that have banned abortion. What is supposed to happen to 
them? What has happened to their right to privacy? Even if we paid for 
them to travel, everybody is going to know what is going on.
  Pregnant women could easily find themselves in America today in an 
emergency room with life-threatening complications--it happens 
literally every single day, every day--with doctors unable to help 
because somebody has to go and consult a lawyer. Doctors are afraid to 
prescribe medications for their patients or even have a conversation 
about their reproductive health for fear of prosecution.
  All over the country, there are elected leaders--so-called leaders--
politicians who are putting themselves between a woman and her right to 
choose.
  Nothing I am saying here is fantastic. Everything I am saying here is 
being talked about, contemplated, legislated in America today all 
across this country as a result of what the Supreme Court has done.
  A woman with cancer could learn she is pregnant--it happens every 
day, every day--and learn she can't get the treatment she needs for her 
cancer.
  This is literally crazy--it is literally crazy--but, as you have 
heard on the floor today, this isn't even crazy enough for some of 
these elected politicians around the country. Now they are threatening 
to use the law to prevent women, American citizens, from exercising 
their right to travel across State lines to access reproductive 
healthcare in the United States of America. It wasn't enough to strip 
women of this fundamental right and have the State force them to bring 
a pregnancy to term. That is not enough. Now they want to use the law 
to prevent her from traveling from one State to another in the United 
States of America.
  I see the pages sitting here today who are the age of my daughter--
one of them--who is 17 years old. I can't believe this is what we are 
handing over to the next generation of Americans. I can't believe it. I 
cannot believe it. This is despicable, especially coming from the same 
people who can never stop telling us how devoted they are to freedom 
and liberty. What a lie that is. What a lie that is.
  I am coming to the end. I know that my colleague from Oregon is next. 
But I just want to say one last thing. I am so grateful to live in a 
State like Colorado, a western purple State, where we have already 
codified a woman's right to an abortion, a woman's right to choose. We 
understand and we have always as a State understood that protecting a 
woman's personal liberty to make these decisions is fundamental to her 
freedom to participate in our society.
  If people from other States need to come to Colorado to access the 
care they need, Congress has the obligation to shield them from 
prosecution. We need to make sure that healthcare providers, no matter 
where they are--Colorado and other States--are safe from prosecution, 
to say nothing of the women themselves, to say nothing of teenage girls 
themselves.
  I can't believe we are even having this conversation on the floor of 
the U.S. Senate. I can't believe it. But that is the America we live in 
now because of this Supreme Court, because of this radical ideology 
they have perpetrated.
  That is why I strongly, strongly support this bill from my colleague 
from Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto. On behalf of my three daughters, I 
want to thank her for her invaluable leadership on this issue.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). The Senator the Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, many colleagues want to speak, and I am 
going to be brief.
  The name of Senator Cortez Masto's bill sums up what this is really 
all about. The Senator has proposed--and she is a former attorney 
general, a very skilled lawyer--she has proposed legislation, the 
Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act. I just want us to take a second 
to think about the name of my colleague from Nevada's legislation.
  I would submit to the Senate that you know something has gone 
horribly wrong in America when the Senate is forced to consider a 
proposal entitled the ``Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act.'' 
Colleagues, just look at those words, the ``freedom to travel for 
health care.'' My colleague has introduced a bill that is as basic as 
it gets--freedom.
  The fact is, six Republicans on the Supreme Court have ripped that 
freedom out by the roots. Now State governments are moving toward 
criminalizing travel for healthcare. They are even moving towards 
criminalizing helping--helping--people travel for healthcare. That is 
unthinkable, in my view, except millions and millions of Americans are, 
in fact, thinking about it and being terrified every single day.
  In my home State of Oregon, we are fortunate to live in a State that 
protects women's health and women's basic freedoms. My home State is 
going to be there for people to get the healthcare they need, including 
an abortion.
  But the fight cannot be left up to the States. That is why I am so 
pleased to stand with my colleague from Nevada, Senator Cortez Masto, 
and my partner from the Pacific Northwest, Senator Murray, to call for 
the Senate to pass legislation with the name the ``Freedom to Travel 
for Health Care Act.'' What my colleague's legislation does is protect 
women and doctors, and she does it by protecting a constitutional 
right--the constitutional right to interstate travel.
  Colleagues, even 3 weeks after the ruling that overturned Roe, it is 
shocking and appalling to see what has come next. We see States 
sprinting towards banning and criminalizing abortion outright. Are you 
a victim of rape or incest? No exceptions. Are you a child? You will 
still be forced to birth a child. Is your life in danger if you carry a 
pregnancy to term? You better get your affairs in order. That is the 
world millions and millions of American women are living in now that 
the Republicans on the Supreme Court have ripped away Roe v. Wade. More 
women's lives are in danger. More American freedoms are disappearing.
  The legislation proposed by my colleague from Nevada is as basic as 
it gets. The Senate needs to act now, and it needs to act without any 
further delay.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Mr. President, the Senate should absolutely support 
the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act.
  Currently, abortion is banned in 10 States, with many more set to 
follow--now, not in Colorado, where we acted strongly to support access 
to reproductive care. Like other pro-choice States,

[[Page S3292]]

we are seeing a large influx of patients. Yet we have heard tragic 
stories of women sleeping in their cars overnight outside of clinics, 
after traveling hundreds of miles, as they wait for appointments.
  After the Texas abortion ban took effect, one woman had her water 
break at 19 weeks--actually, on her wedding day. She had moved up her 
wedding day. The doctors recommended terminating her pregnancy to 
protect her life, increase the possibility, the likelihood, she could 
have children in the future. But it wasn't allowed in Texas, so she 
flew to Colorado for emergency care. Her doctor had her make a plan for 
this travel, make a plan in case she went into labor on the flight. The 
plan was to sit near the bathroom.
  That is what it will soon come to for women in half of America. 
Without this legislation, a woman could face prosecution for traveling 
across State lines. Let that sink in: Her choice would be possible jail 
or probable death.

  This bill will protect every woman's right to travel to seek 
reproductive care--basic freedom. It would also protect doctors who 
would practice in States like Colorado and protect them from 
prosecution and lawsuits for helping out-of-State patients.
  Fundamentally, as my fellow Senators have said, this is about 
freedom. In this new post-Roe era, women can be forced into government-
mandated pregnancies. States are stripping women of the freedom over 
their bodies and their future. The least we should do is protect every 
patient traveling to receive care that just a few weeks ago was 
permitted nationwide.
  Threatening millions of women and doctors with jail time for seeking 
or providing reproductive healthcare would be a stain on this Nation. I 
hope we can find 60 Senators to support this bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am very glad to stand with Senator 
Cortez Masto to support this legislation and also recognize the 
leadership of Senator Murray on this issue as we fight to protect 
fundamental rights belonging to the women of America.
  For nearly half a century, women relied on Roe's recognition that the 
Constitution protects their right to decide if and when to have 
children. A radical and captured Supreme Court has revoked this 
constitutional right, disrupting the reliance and trust of generations 
of women to make fundamental decisions about their own health and their 
own futures.
  Overturning Roe is wildly unpopular, which is why extremists went to 
the captured Court to get a change that they could not get through the 
democratic process. Deep-pocketed extremist interests invested hundreds 
of millions of dollars over decades to build a Court where that kind of 
stuff could get done.
  It is an outrage. Women across this country are angry. Democrats in 
Congress are angry, and we are fighting back in every way we can.
  In addition to State abortion bans, emboldened legislatures are 
readying even more extreme restrictions on women, like proposals to 
investigate, prosecute, and sue women who travel out of State to get 
the care they need. You think I am kidding? Legislation to this effect 
has already been introduced in Missouri. The Constitution already 
protects the right to interstate travel, but as we have now seen, we 
can't rely on an increasingly extremist Supreme Court to protect our 
rights.
  Remember, in a large number of pregnancies, abortion actually becomes 
medically necessary--medically necessary--for the health of the woman 
to bear children in the future, for the life of the woman to survive, 
the risk the pregnancy presents, for the risk to have other children.
  So it is extremely important to make sure women can get that medical 
care. It is extremely important to protect their right to make this 
choice themselves. And it is extremely important to protect medical 
professionals in States like Rhode Island, my home State, from 
punishment for providing care to women from States where State 
legislatures have made abortions illegal.
  I was proud to work with Senator Cortez Masto from the outset to help 
draft the Freedom to Travel for Healthcare Act. It will protect women's 
rights to cross State lines and seek medical services and protect 
providers in States that they are traveling to. I join my colleagues to 
urge swift passage of this bill. This is just one step. There is much 
more work to be done to stand against this continuing assault on 
women's constitutional rights.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, while other colleagues are joining us to 
speak on behalf of the Cortez Masto language, I wanted to thank the 
Senator from Nevada for her legislation and just emphasize how 
important this is to people all through the United States, including my 
State. It happens to be a border State, but even in Seattle, providers 
are worrying about a chilling effect.
  I was wondering if the Senator from Nevada--while our colleagues have 
been talking about how this impacts individuals, people seeking 
healthcare in other States, what is happening now with the chilling 
effect to providers and their anxiety over people pursuing them for 
seeing patients from States in which Roe v. Wade is not fully 
protected?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague from 
Washington and the question posed because it is exactly part of the 
concern we have. I was home in Nevada just recently, and I am very 
proud Nevada is a pro-choice State.

  Our providers are concerned. There is a chilling effect when they are 
hearing other States that are literally criminalizing--looking to pass 
laws to criminalize providers for providing healthcare and a woman 
traveling across State lines.
  What I hear from my providers is we want to help women. We want them 
to come to our State, but if their State is going to pursue legislation 
or criminalize or penalize or prosecute us or a private citizen can 
come after us from that State, then we are having second thoughts about 
this because they do not want to be embroiled in some sort of 
litigation. That is part of this.
  I think it is so important. Thank you for the question because that 
is exactly what their intent is.
  These anti-choice States--individuals who are taking away the liberty 
and freedom of women are also utilizing this chilling effect, this 
threat, this scare tactic for providers, employers, and anyone else who 
wants to help women to get to States where they can seek this 
healthcare that they need. That is the challenge we see. That is why 
this law is so important because it is having an impact on our 
providers in these legitimate choice States like ours who want to 
provide this healthcare.
  Ms. CANTWELL. I want to thank the Senator from Nevada. We were joined 
by the American Medical Association that also expressed this concern. 
They are speaking on behalf of the providers that want to provide 
reproductive choice in States that pass this law, and they are 
concerned. We need to get this legislation passed.
  I thank the Senator from Nevada.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Cantwell for her leadership 
and especially Senator Cortez Masto for her legislation which I am 
about to address. I know that she is running to things today--was in 
the Banking, Housing Committee and is doing this on the floor. I am so 
appreciative of her time and efforts from housing to protecting women's 
health and protecting women's rights.
  I want to comment on some of the things that she said and that 
Senator Cantwell said about this issue and then one specific thing that 
has happened in my State, which is outrageous and immoral.
  The extreme decision a few weeks ago of five Justices took away 
women's freedom to make their own personal healthcare decisions and 
hand it over to politicians. We are also seeing how this put women's 
health at risk. Senator Cortez Masto and many others on the floor 
already said that.
  My State is, unfortunately, worse in what has happened. Fewer than 10 
hours after the Supreme Court's announcement, Ohio's 6-week abortion

[[Page S3293]]

ban took effect. They even banned abortion in cases of rape and in 
cases of incest. That night, women across Ohio received calls from 
their doctors letting them know their appointments had been canceled. 
They need to travel to another State for necessary medical care. Ohio 
politicians are forcing Ohioans--those that can--to take extra time off 
work to find childcare, to spend resources that they may not have to 
travel to get the lifesaving care that they need.
  One group at a roundtable I did--I do this job much by listening to 
roundtables of 10 or 15 or 20 Ohioans who talk to me about veterans' 
care or healthcare or, in this case, women's health or jobs or all the 
things that I learn and take back to Washington.
  I did a roundtable recently where I was hearing from doctors that 
because Ohio's laws are so extreme--so extreme--that women and men--
especially women but men, too--young doctors who might do their 
residency at some of the best hospitals in the world, the Cleveland 
Clinic or University Hospital or Cincinnati Children's or Nationwide 
Children's--that doctors are having second thoughts about wanting to 
move to Ohio because these abortion laws are so radical and so immoral 
and so extreme.
  I am also hearing that prestigious colleges or colleges of all kinds 
that we attract--Ohio has more small colleges and small universities, 
private 4-year schools, than almost any other State in the country. We 
have great State universities in Ohio and great community colleges. I 
am hearing from college Presidents that students who are considering 
coming to Ohio to go to school are having second thoughts, again, 
because of the extremism of this legislature on abortion and, as the 
Presiding Officer knows, the Senate's expert on this issue, the 
extremism on gun laws in Ohio.
  One candidate was campaigning for Congress in Northwest Ohio, and he 
had a holster--under a new Ohio law, he had a holster with a gun in it 
as he was walking along the side of the street handing candy to 
children. It is just ludicrous.
  Back to this issue that Senator Cortez Masto is leading on. Earlier 
this month, a 10-year-old girl--a child, a survivor of rape--was forced 
to travel to Indiana from Ohio to receive healthcare. She was past the 
6 weeks. Republican politicians first tried to deny it. They mocked 
her. They mocked this--they didn't know who she was at this point. They 
mocked the story. They said it couldn't be true. Then the man who did 
it was arrested. There was no real apology from these well-known 
Republican politicians, Members of Congress, statewide officeholders.
  They had mocked this story just saying it couldn't be true when it 
was true. Yet did they apologize? No. They should look into a camera--
they should stand in front of many of us and say: I am sorry. They 
should apologize to that little girl's family, that little girl's 
doctor, that little girl's support group that she has.
  No 10-year-old--no American--should have to go through what she went 
through. Since May, 50 reports of rape or sexual abuse involving 
children under the age of 15 have been reported in Columbus alone. 
Fifty--5-0--reports of rape or sexual abuse involving children under 
15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10--10 years old--children who have been abused 
like that have been reported in Columbus alone.
  I don't know. Are the rightwingers in the legislature who think 
abortion should have no protection--that no women should be protected, 
rape, incest, life and health of the mother, that they just deny any of 
this happened--are they going to do that again and continue to attack 
these families?
  Now, because of the Ohio Legislature's fixation on controlling 
women's bodies, victims of rape in Ohio won't be able to access the 
care that they need.
  Even in cases where it may technically be allowed, doctors will be 
afraid to provide it. I heard the fear in doctors' voices in that round 
table in Cleveland earlier this week. And I heard Senator Murray talk 
about this, who has joined us in the Chamber. I heard doctors talk 
about the fear that their colleagues have to even get near a pregnant 
patient who might have another healthcare issue.
  Women and girls shouldn't have to travel around the country to 
receive care--in many cases, care that will save their health or their 
lives. Doctors shouldn't have to wait on lawyers to tell them if they 
can provide the care. Again, the fear of these doctors--these were 
brave women--two women and a man--who were talking to me, they were 
talking about the fear in others, other physicians, that they are 
afraid they are going to have to wait on lawyers to tell them if they 
can provide the care their patients need.
  That is what happens when politicians insist on making medical 
decisions for women and for girls that doctors and the women and girls 
themselves in their family should be making.
  Now, anti-choice politicians attacking Senator Cortez Masto's bill 
are trying to criminalize interstate travel. Politicians can't hold 
pregnant women and girls hostage. Politicians should not be able to 
decide who can travel where. This is America.
  In my State, it is Ohio. You are allowed to travel wherever you want, 
whenever you want. As long as you are doing it legally, interstate 
travel is a constitutional right.
  That is why the Senate must pass the Freedom to Travel for Healthcare 
Act to protect that right, to protect Ohio women and girls, to protect 
the healthcare professionals who serve them, all of them.
  When, how, and whether to have a family is the most personal and 
meaningful decisions we make in life. The freedom to make those 
decisions for yourself free from political interference should be 
available to everyone--everyone. We can't accept a world where our 
daughters and our granddaughters have fewer rights and less freedom 
than their mothers.
  As soon as I heard about that decision, about the Dobbs case and Roe 
v. Wade, first thing I thought about is my wife who will celebrate her 
65th birthday in 2 weeks, and I thought that my mother--my deceased 
mother--and my wife have more rights than my daughters in their 
thirties and early forties and my granddaughters who are still too 
young to really understand what this is about.
  What kind of world is that where people of my generation had more 
rights than we are bequeathing to our children and our grandchildren?
  I won't stop. I know Senator Murray won't stop working to protect 
women's freedom--all Americans' freedoms to have life, to have 
families, and live their lives how they want, when they want, free from 
meddling politicians.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, yesterday, I chaired a hearing focused on 
driving home the devastating repercussions of the healthcare crisis 
Republicans caused by overturning Roe and ending the right to abortion.
  At that hearing, doctors and patients and experts spoke directly to 
the chaos and harm Republicans are causing. Tens of millions of women 
across the country now live in States where abortion has been banned or 
is likely to be banned soon.
  Republicans have ripped away every woman's ability to decide for 
herself whether or not to keep a pregnancy. And it forced them to be 
pregnant when they do not want to be. Republicans are denying women 
control over their own bodies, endangering their health and putting 
patients and providers in impossible, indefensible situations: doctors 
unsure if they can save their patients without being punished; 
pharmacists unsure if they can fulfill a prescription; people unsure if 
they will be able to get Plan B, unsure if they will be able to use IVF 
to start a family and afraid they could get reported or investigated or 
even arrested for having a miscarriage.
  And so many women forced to travel across State lines to get the 
reproductive care they need. People forced to drive miles and miles 
just to get the care that could save their lives. Good God, this should 
be unthinkable. But as we saw at yesterday's hearing, that is exactly 
the sort of oppressive regime, exactly the sort of nightmare reality 
Republicans have chosen to champion.
  My colleague, the junior Senator from Kansas, actually said the fall 
of Roe was ``a positive development.'' Leader McConnell even called it 
a ``gigantic leap forward.'' My colleagues

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really think the devastation, the harm playing out across this country 
is positive? That is despicable.
  Of course, another thing we saw at that hearing is that Republicans 
will do anything they can to change the subject from the damage that we 
will see, to ignore the reality of how deadly their policies are.
  News flash: When you force someone to be pregnant, they are going to 
notice; they are going to remember; and they are going to be painfully 
aware of the difference between their personal decision and the reality 
Republican politicians are forcing on them.
  And the horrifying thing is Republicans aren't just trying to mislead 
about the real impact of this cruel agenda, they are pushing for a 
national abortion ban. And Republican lawmakers have already set their 
sights on ripping away the right to travel.
  Let's be really clear what that means. They want to hold women 
captive in their own States. They want to punish women and anyone who 
might help them for exercising their constitutional right to travel 
within our country to get the services that they need in another State.
  I hope everyone really absorbs how extreme and how radical and how 
un-American that is.
  I mean, just imagine what bans like that would mean for people. In my 
home State of Washington, the city of Clarkston is separated from 
Lewiston, ID, by a river--just a bridge, that is it. People cross that 
bridge every single day, without a second thought. And they cross State 
borders just like it every day, by the millions.
  Surely, we can all agree that crossing that bridge, crossing any 
State border to go to the doctor and get healthcare you need should not 
be a crime. Surely, that is common sense. Surely, every Republican who 
has railed against Big Government could agree with me about that.
  I will be honest, based on the shameless hypocrisy I have seen this 
week, I doubt it. But we are about to find out because we are about to 
request we pass a bill that my colleague from Nevada, along with 
Senator Gillibrand, Senator Whitehouse, and I, introduced on Tuesday, 
the Freedom to Travel for Healthcare Act. It is telling that some 
Republicans are already saying that this is a solution in search of a 
problem.
  Well, let's be clear about the problem because it is real and it is 
imminent. Conservative legal organizations are right now drafting 
legislation to ban travel for abortion. It was discussed at two anti-
abortion conferences already.
  Republican Texas legislators are saying out loud they are working 
with the National Association of Christian Lawmakers to draft bills 
restricting travel modeled after their barbaric, vigilante abortion 
ban. And there is already legislation introduced in Missouri to ban 
abortion travel. Anyone telling you this is not a threat is not paying 
attention or they are just trying to mislead you.
  So there is a problem. Now, here is the solution. What this bill does 
is simple, it protects every American's constitutional right to travel 
across State lines and to travel in order to get or provide a lawful 
abortion.
  It prevents States from restricting or impeding Americans' right to 
travel to access care and ensures there is legal recourse if States 
attempt to restrict that right.
  And it protects healthcare providers who are licensed to provide 
abortions in the States where they are practicing. This should not be 
controversial. We should all agree, Americans have a right to travel 
within the United States and get the reproductive care they need.
  So I urge my colleagues to support this proposal and to work with us 
to make sure that Americans get access to the healthcare they need 
where they need it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, recently the Supreme Court righted a 
historic injustice, and it was clearly written in the opinion by 
Justice Alito. It said this is to return the power to the people, 
return the power to the people's elected representatives, instead of 
nine men back in 1973 in black robes to decide this very important 
issue.
  It said the people should decide the right parameters to protect moms 
and their babies from the violence of abortion. And rather than use 
this opportunity to protect life, very soon, the Senate Democrats will 
try to pass a very extreme--extreme--abortion bill.
  Remember how extreme our colleagues have become on the other side of 
the aisle on the issue of abortion. They want to codify the ability to 
abort babies up until the moment of birth.
  In fact, we have seen my colleagues across the aisle reject trying to 
protect babies that are born alive as a result of an abortion. It is 
chilling. This bill that is going to be presented does nothing to help 
pregnant moms in crisis or their unborn babies.
  This bill, just even looking at it, which has been hastily put 
together in the last 48 hours, this bill would give fly-in abortionists 
free rein to commit abortion on demand up to the moment of birth and 
even--it seems--to perform them within a State with strong pro-life 
laws.
  This bill also protects the greed, frankly, of woke corporations, who 
see that it is cheaper to pay for an abortion and abortion tourism than 
maternity leave for their employees.
  We must reject this radical legislation that will endanger pregnant 
mothers and endanger their babies.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 
minutes prior to the scheduled vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I rise today, along with my 
colleagues, and I want to thank my colleagues, Senators Murray, 
Whitehouse, and Gillibrand, for their good work with me on the 
legislation we are talking about today, which is the Freedom to Travel 
for Healthcare Act.
  As you have heard from my colleagues and as we know in the past few 
months, we have seen women's right to choose taken away in States 
around the country overnight.
  Less than 3 weeks ago, the Supreme Court explicitly overturned Roe v. 
Wade, depriving women of a right they held for 50 years. When the Court 
decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, it repeatedly 
insisted that its holding would, ``return the issue of abortion to the 
people's elected representatives'' in the States. Forget women, forget 
women's rights, but let's give it to the politicians.
  As a result, in 18 States, abortion is either effectively banned or 
will be within 30 days. Ultimately, around half of States are expected 
to get rid of most or all abortion services within their borders.
  In the face of these profound restrictions on reproductive health 
services, American women, who are able to do so, have had to travel to 
States, like mine, that still protect the women's right to choose.
  Thanks to a 1990 referendum, Nevada has enshrined the right to choose 
in statute in my State. That is why we are already seeing women make 
their way to Nevada to get the healthcare that they need and they 
deserve.
  But radical anti-choice policymakers have been emboldened by the 
Supreme Court decision and its discord and its shocking disregard for 
precedent. Yet they are not satisfied with a country where abortion is 
only banned in half the States.
  We know now they are working to introduce legislation in Congress to 
ban abortion nationwide. And until they can pass it, they want to stop 
women from traveling for critical care and to punish people who support 
these women.
  Anti-choice State legislators in Missouri, Texas, and Arkansas have 
said they want to pass bills to fine or prosecute women who travel for 
healthcare and do the same to providers who offer abortion services and 
the many employers who have said they will support their employees who 
need to seek reproductive care in another State.
  Let me be specific about this because this is devastating already to 
so many, including in my State.
  In Missouri, a State legislator has repeatedly introduced legislation 
that would allow private citizens to sue those who help Missouri 
citizens receive out-of-State abortion services.
  In Texas, State legislators have said they will introduce legislation 
to ban businesses that help employees travel

[[Page S3295]]

to receive abortions. They have also written cease-and-desist letters 
to companies like Lyft, Citigroup, and even law firms to tell them to 
stop helping employees who seek abortion out of State.
  In Arkansas, a State senator has called for a law targeting 
businesses helping employees travel for care.
  Let's not forget South Dakota because the Governor of South Dakota 
refused in an interview to rule out laws that target women who travel 
for abortion.
  But we are not done yet because we also know that some anti-choice 
groups are actively pushing for such bans. The Thomas More Society, an 
extremist anti-choice group, is working on draft legislation. Its vice 
president told the Washington Post:

       Just because you jump across a state line doesn't mean your 
     home state doesn't have jurisdiction. It's not a free 
     abortion card when you drive across the state line.

  The National Association of Christian Lawmakers, an anti-abortion 
organization led by Republican State legislators, is also reported to 
be working on similar legislation modeled after the Texas law.
  There is no doubt in my mind that some States are going to continue 
to move forward with these kinds of legislation.
  I want to note that, quite frankly, some of my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle have tried to have it both ways for years, 
insisting that the right to choose was safe--in my State, they have 
done it--at the same time they supported increasingly extreme limits to 
it. We even heard nominees testify that they would follow Supreme Court 
precedent, including Roe and Casey. Yet now we all know those 
reassurances were all false. We have seen women's reproductive rights 
eroded steadily for decades, and we know that anti-choice activists 
won't stop. This is a form of gaslighting, to keep insisting that 
American women will be able to get care when we know that anti-choice 
legislators and groups are working to stop them from doing so.
  What legislators are doing across the country to restrict women from 
traveling is just blatantly unconstitutional. They constrain the 
fundamental constitutional right to travel, they are anti-woman, they 
are anti-business, and they are anti-provider.
  Let me just say, merely proposing this legislation, merely talking 
about civil action or prosecuting a woman or a provider or even an 
employer who helps a woman to travel, is having a chilling effect.
  In my State, they are already seeing that these proposals are having 
a chilling effect on my providers, who are worried about offering 
quality abortion care in the face of potential lawsuits. In Montana, 
reproductive health clinics are even limiting care to instate residents 
only. Imagine traveling hundreds of miles for essential healthcare, 
only to be turned away for fear of a lawsuit.
  That is why I and my colleagues have introduced this bill to make it 
crystal clear: States cannot and must not prosecute women who travel 
across State lines for critical reproductive care.
  Our legislation also protects healthcare providers in destination 
States and anyone who helps women travel for the care they deserve, 
from businesses to taxi drivers, to doctors.
  Today, we are calling to pass this legislation. If my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle believe in States' rights and the liberty 
of freedom for women in this country, they should support this bill. If 
they believe in the fundamental right of all Americans to travel, they 
should support this bill. If they fail to protect women who travel for 
healthcare and those who support them, then they need to go on record 
for the American people to explain why.
  I will tell you what. It is not enough to stand there and say that 
somehow this legislation is a fly-in abortionist legislation. My 
colleague from Montana failed to read this legislation. And 
fearmongering at this point in time when women's fundamental rights are 
being eroded in this country is not the answer that women and so many 
Americans in this country now need.
  What we need is for people to recommend and support and identify with 
the freedoms that this country brings to all of us, whether you are a 
woman or a man in this country. This is about the right to choose and 
make those decisions for women. It is a fundamental right. It is an 
important right. It is our healthcare and our decision. We are 50 
percent of this population, and we deserve to be treated equally.
  With that, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that 
the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 
4504 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, 
that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion 
to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no 
intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
  The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Reserving the right to object, this is my first time to 
be able to stand and speak since the Court made its decision in Dobbs. 
I have been on this floor I actually don't know how many times talking 
about the value of every single child.
  The conversation today is not just about the right to travel and the 
right to healthcare. It is deeper than that. It is the right to live.
  The conversation today is not just about women. There are two people 
in this conversation--a child with 10 fingers and 10 toes and a beating 
heart and DNA that is uniquely different than the mom's DNA or the 
dad's DNA. They have a nervous system. They feel pain. There is a child 
in this conversation as well.
  In my conversation when I have come to the floor over and over again, 
it has been to say that at some point our Nation should look at basic 
science and to say when you have DNA and you have a functioning nervous 
system and you have cell division, in every health book everywhere in 
the country, they call that life, but for some reason, on this floor, 
it is just tissue.
  I actually come to be able to thank millions of women and millions of 
men who for five decades have not written off children, who have walked 
out, who have marched, who have silently prayed, who have gathered in 
places and said: When are we going to recognize what is self-evident? 
That child in the womb is a child, and that child may be inconvenient, 
but that is a child. When are we going to recognize that basic thing?
  For 50 years, that conversation has gone on with the simple statement 
of, at what point will we be able to speak out for the value of every 
person, and I do mean every person, including the mom?
  It has been interesting to be able to hear all the misinformation in 
the past couple of weeks. I have read story after story and seen all 
these breathless news reports about how women with an ectopic pregnancy 
will not be able to get care; they will be doomed to die--except there 
is no State law that would prohibit someone getting treatment that is 
lifesaving for an ectopic pregnancy in any State. I have seen all these 
breathless reports about how there will be miscarriages and you won't 
be able to get care--except that is not true in a single place, not 
one. This over and over riling people up.
  What I have seen are 50 churches that have been attacked. What I have 
seen are 57 crisis resource centers for pregnancy resource that have 
been attacked and firebombed. I have seen that. Now, we don't seem to 
discuss that here on the floor. No one is actually saying that all this 
conversation, all this misinformation, all this noise is actually 
leading to actual violence across the country. Everyone is like: Oh, 
no, no; that is not related. Oh really? So when a pregnancy resource 
center is firebombed and spray painted on the side of it ``If abortions 
aren't safe in America, neither are you''--we should probably just 
ignore that? Because that is what is actually going on across the 
country right now as well.
  To be very clear, no State has banned interstate travel for adult 
women seeking to obtain an abortion. No State has done that. Now, am I 
confident there are some people who are out there talking? Yes. But 
there are also in this Senate 5,000 bills that have been filed. And how 
many of them are actually going to move--as it is in every legislature 
across the country, and everyone in this body knows it. Everyone knows 
it. But this seems to be just trying to inflame, to raise the what-ifs.
  It has been interesting to me that there is another bill that is 
actually being discussed that would literally--if you are a pregnancy 
resource center

[[Page S3296]]

dealing with crisis pregnancies, if you don't perform abortions, they 
would call that misinformation. In the other bill that is being 
discussed right now, they would fine you $100,000.
  I can't even begin to explain my emotion when I think, if you take 
the life of a child, there is pressure to say: We want Federal funding 
to take the life of a child. If you protect the life of a child, we are 
going to fine you $100,000. Is that really where we are? Is that really 
what this debate has become?
  This administration has quickly become the most pro-abortion 
administration in American history and has rapidly moved to accelerate 
abortions across the country, while millions of other Americans just 
ask a simple question: Does that child in the womb have the right to 
travel in their future? Do they get to live?
  Some would say: No. They are terribly inconvenient. They need to die.
  Others would say: Why don't we actually live by our values, including 
the right to life?
  So while there is conversation about how to put a piece of 
legislation out that may very well protect individuals who are being 
trafficked to go to other States to get an abortion or all kinds of 
other issues that are there, I come back to the most basic thing: There 
is a child in this conversation, and maybe this body should pay 
attention to children as well and to wonder what their future could be 
to travel in the days ahead as well.
  I look forward to the day when we are talking more about that little 
girl and less about misinformation.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Nevada.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I would ask for 5 minutes to 
respond.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I do appreciate my colleague from 
Oklahoma coming here to talk. I disagree with his argument, but I do 
appreciate his profound belief in what he is saying.
  I think it is ironic that the issue here before us is really a States 
right issue. It is exactly what Justice Alito did in the Dobbs case and 
referred this issue to the States to make that decision, and all my 
legislation says is, respect my State. We are a choice State. We have 
made that decision as a State, and if women want to travel to my State 
to seek services and my providers want to provide those services and 
employers want to help women travel, then let the States do that. We 
shouldn't be impeding on those decisions.

  So it is kind of ironic. I hear my colleagues talking about, in this 
case, let's take the emotion out of it, except when they want to put 
emotion into the issue, or let's take the emotion out of it when it is 
not convenient for the arguments they are making.
  Let me also address a couple of things because now I have learned 
from some of my colleagues, really, the argument they are going to 
start making is that somehow this legislation is flying in abortions, 
which it absolutely is not. It is a States rights issue. And nobody is 
flying into my State to provide healthcare. The actual healthcare is 
already there.
  The other thing I have heard, which is actually very offensive to me 
and I think to so many, is that somehow this is trafficking women. 
Well, let me tell you about trafficking. I know trafficking. I wrote 
the law to prevent sex trafficking and sexual exploitation in the State 
of Nevada for so many who were being sexually exploited across this 
country, to hold predators accountable, to make sure that they can 
become survivors. This is not trafficking. And for anyone to stand up 
and say that it is has a complete misunderstanding. And quite honestly, 
I will welcome you to the fight about human trafficking in this country 
and sexual exploitation of women and children across the country. That 
is so offensive. But I am not surprised because in this day and age, 
unfortunately, some of these radical ideas coming out of this Congress 
miss what is happening across this country.
  A majority of Americans in this country support the right of women to 
choose because you know why? I don't know what it is like to step in 
their shoes and walk in their shoes and nor do you, nor does anyone 
here. I shouldn't impose my beliefs, my religion, my ideas on what they 
should do for their lives. None of us should. That is the freedom in 
this country. That is who we are when we stand for freedoms and 
liberties. It doesn't mean we get to pick and choose those freedoms and 
take away the rights of the very individual because we believe 
differently or our religion thinks that we should do differently. That 
is what we do when we come into this Congress and we all work together 
to the benefit of everyone and not erode their rights and their future 
and their opportunities. That is what this is about.
  This legislation is very simple. Let's protect those freedoms. Let's 
make sure we protect those States rights and allow women, healthcare 
providers, and employers to actually support and help one another in 
this country. That is what this legislation does. To say otherwise is 
misconstruing, it is fearmongering, and a continuing erosion of the 
debate of the constitutional rights and the American rights in this 
country right now. And that is the problem with Congress.
  I yield the floor.