[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 116 (Thursday, July 14, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3290-S3296]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
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
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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,
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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
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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.