[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.