[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 11 (Monday, January 22, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S195-S197]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Roe V. Wade
Madam President, I rise on this day that, 51 years ago, the Supreme
Court issued its ruling in the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, a legal
victory that granted millions of women in every corner of this Nation
the right to make decisions about their own bodies--a decision that
gave them the right to decide their own future. Today, this anniversary
now serves as a reminder for
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over 25 million women that there are those who believe that their
futures are not for them to decide.
Make no mistake, the Supreme Court's decision in June 2022 to
overturn Roe and dismantle nearly 50 years of precedent was a direct
attack on freedom. We now live in an era where our children, including
my 9-year-old, are less free than their mothers and grandmothers before
them.
The Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs will indeed have repercussions
that will be felt for generations to come. It is shameful that current
and future generations are being saddled with fighting the same battles
that their grandparents fought, the very battles that their parents
thought were already won. The American spirit once meant that each
generation was determined, if not obligated, to advance freedom and
opportunity for the next. Yet, at this moment, we are failing--passing
them the baton of a nation that is less free day by day.
I stand not just concerned but furious at the dangerous attacks on
reproductive freedom. Extremist lawmakers have championed a draconian
anti-abortion agenda that stunts our progress and drags our country
backwards. These legislators are responsible for the ban of some or all
abortion care in 21 States, leaving 1 in 3 women without the ability to
get the care they need where they live. They have introduced bills
ladened with harmful restrictions, even going so far as to criminalize
our doctors and other essential healthcare workers providing lifesaving
care.
The impacts of these restrictions are not felt equally. Women of
color and women of lower socioeconomic status are disproportionately
burdened by these restrictions. Many face the financial barriers and
carry the scars of shame that leave them without access to care instate
and being forced to remain pregnant while our Nation is already
combating a devastating maternal mortality crisis.
These intentionally harmful policies have targeted women. They have
targeted healthcare providers. They have become tools of division,
dismantling the trust between colleagues and neighbors afraid to seek
support or advice for fear of retribution--all in an effort to send the
undeniable message that there are those who will stop at nothing to cut
off a patient's right to decide for themselves.
But just as these policies serve to undermine our democracy and right
of people to make decisions about our own bodies, the American people
have shown that they stand on the side of freedom. Ever since the Dobbs
decision, Americans all over the country and of varied political
parties have spoken at every opportunity they have had in staunch
opposition to these attacks on their reproductive freedom. In States
like Ohio, Kentucky, and Montana, people have stood up and turned out
in favor of reproductive rights. In my home State, Californians
overwhelmingly decided to amend the State constitution, enshrining the
right to abortion care into State law.
Standing with the majority of the people in my State and States all
across this country, I join my colleagues as a proud cosponsor of
legislation like the Right to Contraception Act, the Freedom to Travel
for Health Care Act, and numerous other policies that would safeguard
reproductive freedom. That includes the Women's Health Protection Act,
which would ensure access to comprehensive reproductive health care
options, including abortion, across the country.
In closing, the American people have been clear: Their doctor's
offices and their healthcare decisions are a freedom they will stand to
protect. So I invite my colleagues to stand on the right side of
history by supporting critical legislation that protects access to
reproductive care. The next generation is counting on us to ensure that
they inherit a future with the same rights as generations before them,
so today and every day, I stand ready to do just that.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, today is the 51st anniversary of Roe v.
Wade. We should be standing here celebrating more than five decades'
worth of access to essential reproductive health care--healthcare that
is central to well-being, life, liberty, equality, and economic and
social freedom for everyone; healthcare that is essential to equity for
women, LGBTQ, Black, Brown, indigenous, rural, immigrant, low-income,
and disabled Americans. But instead of celebrating, we are fighting--
fighting for Americans' freedom. We are fighting to protect the right
to abortion.
Since the rightwing, extremist Supreme Court majority's Dobbs
decision, women and millions of people across America have watched as
States strip away their freedom to make decisions--decisions about
their own bodies and their own families.
Taking Dobbs as a clarion call to rip away Americans' freedoms,
rightwing Republicans across the country have marched forward to strip
away the right to abortion State by State, with calls to expand that to
a Federal ban on abortion. These politicians are more obsessed with
interfering in the lives and decisions of the American people and their
healthcare providers than actually fixing the healthcare system of our
country to make sure that every American can get the care they need
when and where they need that care. They are more obsessed with
pretending they know more about the healthcare workers trained to
support patient decision making than actually representing the American
people who want to see their right to abortion being protected.
Americans across the country have suffered horrific pain and
hardship, like Massachusetts resident Kate Dineen, who drove 500 miles
to receive an abortion after her son experienced a catastrophic stroke
in utero. This suffering especially affects those who do not have the
means or the resources to travel across State lines. Tens of millions
of Americans live in States where their reproductive health care is
banned or restricted.
These rightwing extremists aren't finished. Dobbs was but a preview
of coming atrocities by this Supreme Court and by rightwing Governors
and State legislators all across our country. They have threatened the
right to contraception. They have blocked access to birth control for
teenagers at federally funded clinics. They have suspended emergency
contraception payments for survivors of sexual assault. They will not
stop at overturning Roe v. Wade.
On this anniversary of Roe, we must recommit to taking decisive
action to protect millions of Americans' access to abortion care,
remove unnecessary limits on reproductive freedom, and protect against
coming attacks from rightwing Republicans and this extremist Supreme
Court. We must abolish the filibuster, a Jim Crow-era relic impeding
the will of the American people. We must pass the Women's Health
Protection Act to restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land, protect
patients' rights to an abortion, and protect healthcare workers
providing these services. We must guard against coming attacks on our
freedom by passing my Right to Contraception Act and pass the Judiciary
Act to expand the Supreme Court and bring balance and fairness back to
the Supreme Court before they make more and more decisions that
overturn precedents that have been protecting the American people for
generations.
We have a moral duty to act. There is no more time to waste. Supreme
Court Justices may serve lifetime appointments, but we cannot wait a
lifetime to right injustices. Congress can step in to protect the
American people from the overreach of this radical Supreme Court
majority. We must rise up and meet this moment with everything we have.
I ask my Senate colleagues what other rights Americans must lose
before we act. What vulnerable communities in their States will be left
without healthcare, without autonomy, without freedom? There can be no
justice without healthcare justice in our country, and there can be no
health justice without reproductive freedom in the United States of
America being once again restored.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Ms. WARREN. Madam President, I want to start by saying a very special
thank-you to Senator Butler for calling us here today.
Today should have been the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade; instead,
too
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many people can't get the medical care they need when they need it,
where they need it. Students who are desperate for help get the
runaround. Poor women face impossible hurdles. Children who have
survived rape and become pregnant are frightened and confused.
Fertility clinics are abandoning services, and families who hoped for a
baby face excruciating heartache when a pregnancy goes wrong and
doctors are barred from helping. At every turn, we see a new form of
hell brought to us by an extremist Supreme Court and a powerful band of
Republican lawmakers determined to obliterate reproductive freedom
across the country.
To every person watching these events unfold and feeling hurt, I see
you, I am with you, and I grieve alongside you.
But I do more than grieve, more than complain; I fight back, and I am
asking you to fight back too because, right now, this is our moment to
act and, if we don't, we might not get another opportunity for a long,
long time.
Roe wasn't overturned by some accident. We are here because
Republican extremists have been waging a decades-long war to take down
Roe. They have poured billions of dark money into our politics to chip
away at our rights. They handpicked judges with proven anti-abortion
records. They took over State and local governments. They built an
anti-Roe coalition right here in Congress. And the very second--the
very second--that the Supreme Court gave them the green light, they
jumped into action enacting the most severe restrictions possible on
abortion access.
The result: Over the last year and a half, over 20 States have banned
or severely restricted abortion access; passed laws criminalizing
doctors who perform abortions; or threatened access to pregnancy care,
miscarriage care, fertility assistance, and more.
Well-organized and well-funded extremists have brought lawsuits to
further restrict access, hoping to undermine access in States that are
firmly pro-choice. The result has been cruel and frightening. Some
people have given in to despair, but I don't see it that way.
To me, the end of Roe marked a new era in the movement for abortion
rights. Yes, an era that has been harrowing for people across the
country, but also one that marks the end of a plan Republicans hatched
40 years ago to reverse Roe and the beginning of a new chapter. And in
this new chapter, we are leading the way.
Together, we have made clear that an overwhelming majority of
Americans support reproductive freedom and individuals' rights to make
decisions about their own bodies. Across this country, millions of
Americans have come together and said they are with us. Not just in
places like California and New York, but in Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan,
and Ohio.
The Biden-Harris administration has stepped up to vigorously protect
reproductive freedom from defending medication abortion from baseless
lawsuits to preserving access to care for servicemembers and veterans
to strengthening protection for patients' sensitive health information.
Republicans know that the majority of Americans oppose overturning
Roe, but they aren't letting up. Instead, overturning Roe is not enough
for them; they want more. They have introduced legislation to ban
abortion nationwide, and if they can't pass it through Congress, they
will use a Republican President to dust off a 19th century anti-
obscenity law, instead, to try to get the job done.
We cannot let that happen. We have the energy; we have the numbers;
and we know what we need to do. President Biden has called on Congress
to act. We need to pass the Women's Health Protection Act to protect
our human rights and to roll back the extreme abortion bills that
radical rightwing legislatures have enacted across this country, and we
need to get in the fight right now to secure the Congress that we need
to get this job done.
This won't be easy, but important fights never are. I know our
strength; I have seen it in the millions of people marching in the
streets for abortion rights. I have seen it in the thousands of calls
made to Congressional offices. I have seen it in the resolve of people
standing up for Kate Cox in Texas and Brittany Watts in Ohio. And that
is how I know that even when it gets hard, we will persist.
From this moment on, what happens is up to us. Together we have the
power to restore Roe and to protect our right to make our own decisions
about our own bodies and our own futures. I am in this fight all the
way. The stakes are too high not to be.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas.