[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 108 (Tuesday, June 24, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3507-S3512]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Abortion
Ms. BLUNT ROCHESTER. Mr. President, there are moments in our lives
when everything changes, when the world shifts underneath you and a new
reality forms. These are moments when you remember exactly where you
were, what you were doing, and who you were with.
June 24, 2022, was one of those days. Three years ago, I marched with
my House colleagues to the Supreme Court. I stood in solidarity with
Democrats and Republicans alike. We felt shock, disbelief, anger, and
sadness at the loss of one of our fundamental rights. On that day, Roe
v. Wade was overturned, and for many, their lives were turned upside
down.
Since then, extreme Republicans and President Trump have said that
abortion is a States' rights issue--States' rights. Yet, over the last
3 years, we have watched as quietly and purposefully they have chipped
away at our rights, chipped away at our bodily autonomy, because the
goal has always been a national abortion ban.
Three Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justices and the Dobbs decision
later and we are still watching this unfold. Anti-abortion extremists
have been piecing together a puzzle that, when it is completed, will
create a national abortion ban, and they add a new piece each and every
day.
Over the next hour, my colleagues and I will lay out what the
Republican national abortion ban looks like, what it means for everyday
Americans, and what we can do about it because these efforts will hurt
all of us--especially young women, women of low income, women in rural
areas, and women of color.
For me, this is personal. I could have lost my daughter-in-law
because she did not get the care she needed. And I remember getting a
call on Christmas morning. I was in the kitchen, I was cooking, and I
heard my daughter-in-law on the other end of the phone say: Mom, my
water just broke. It is too soon.
She went to the hospital, but, again, the hospital we went to could
not provide the care that she needed for the miscarriage that she was
having, and they sent her home. I remember thinking about all the
committee hearings that I had on the Health Subcommittee in--the Health
Committee in the House and how the data was clear that we in this
country have a maternal mortality crisis, that Black women die three
times the rate of our White counterparts, and all I could think was, we
have to get you somewhere. And we did.
Fortunately, Ebony is here alive today. Fortunately, Ebony was able
to have my beautiful granddaughter--because of IVF, I might add.
But stories like these are all too common. It disproportionately
affects Black and Brown women. We face reproductive challenges. We have
a higher mortality rate. We have higher rates of reproductive cancers.
We have higher rates of preterm births.
Like I said, this is personal.
We are here today to show the American people that we did not forget
about the Dobbs decision, especially because the majority of
Americans--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--believe that we
should have legal and safe abortions.
We are here today to tell the Republican Party: You can't have it
both ways. You can't claim to be the party of personal freedom while
telling us what to do with our bodies.
President Trump, you can't claim to be the fertilization President
while making it more dangerous for women to give birth.
You can't claim to be the party of strong economic growth while
cutting Medicaid, food assistance, and childcare for many women who
need it to participate in the workforce--and all to give tax breaks to
people who already have all of these resources.
We are here today to show extreme Republicans across the Nation that
we see what you are doing--quietly assembling the pieces of the puzzle.
And when it is completed, it will strip Americans of their access to
abortion care in red States and blue States.
We are here to show just how important it is that we fight this
reconciliation bill. Whether you call it a ``Big Bad Bill'' or whether
you call it a ``Big Ugly Bill,'' whatever you call it, this is the
moment for people to speak up because it is just another piece of the
puzzle, and we are here to shine a light on the ultimate goal of a
national abortion ban.
I stand here, and I think about the young women I saw as I came to
this floor. I think about my niece. I think about my daughter and I
think about my granddaughter and the fact that they now have less
rights than I did, than my mother did, and than my grandmother did and
that today it is important for us to not forget and to make sure that
we recognize what this is all about and that we want the best for our
young people in this country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I want to make sure that the country and
this institution knows that the leadership of our new colleague from
the State of Delaware is making a difference already. She has been
doing yeoman's work on this for quite some time.
In fact, in the other body, as it is called, the House of
Representatives, she stood for the values that have been expressed here
today and we so appreciate her leadership and I thank her, personally,
for including me.
We are on the floor to mark an anniversary of what was essentially
the end of women having power over healthcare decisions. Before Roe v.
Wade was overturned, many of my Democratic colleagues and I warned that
it would be deadly for women. We were labeled liars and gaslighters and
fearmongers. And, unfortunately, for the women of America, you don't
have to take our word for it. Since the Dobbs ruling was handed down 3
years ago, 22 States have passed restrictive, near- or total abortion
bans, and countless women have died as a direct result of those laws.
In Georgia, Amber Nicole Thurman died after she developed an
infection during pregnancy and was denied lifesaving reproductive care
under her State's new abortion law.
In Texas, Porsha Ngumezi, a mom of two, was expecting her third child
when she suddenly developed complications and began miscarrying. She
died after going to the ER where she was denied the care she needed,
and she was left to bleed out all because her doctors were too scared
to perform the necessary medical care under Texas's abortion law.
Josseli Barnica of Texas was pregnant, hoping to give her daughter
another sibling, when she developed complications with her pregnancy.
She rushed to the hospital where doctors left her to suffer for 40
hours without giving her the healthcare she needed. That was because it
was illegal under Texas law. She died 3 days later after developing a
preventable infection because she had been denied care.
Despite Federal law that requires providers to give women
reproductive care in emergency medical situations, these States are
letting women die anyway. Every single one of these deaths was
preventable if Republican lawmakers hadn't put abortion bans in place
that threaten doctors and hospitals with jail time and other legal
actions if they provide necessary reproductive care.
Many of the women hurt by these abortion bans are already mothers or
women hoping to start a family, but because they are being denied
necessary care, those that don't die are often being left with
complications that take away their ability to have kids in the future.
In Tennessee, Breanna Cecil had to travel out of State, all the way
to Chicago, to get an abortion after a complication with her pregnancy.
But before returning to Tennessee, she developed a recurring infection
that resulted in invasive surgery that left her infertile. Breanna says
that her State's strict abortion law ``took away her fertility.''
So I am going to end very briefly by fast forwarding to 2025.
Republicans don't seem to have learned any lessons. They don't seem
phased by the pain and suffering their laws are causing
[[Page S3508]]
women and mothers across the land. Instead, they are doubling down on
their efforts to restrict access to reproductive care for even more
women; this time, through a backdoor abortion ban in the reconciliation
budget bill. This legislation contains a provision that would strip
funding from Planned Parenthood clinics that perform abortion services.
Mr. President, Planned Parenthood does not receive a single dime--not
a dime--of Federal funding for abortion care. These clinics do receive
funding to provide essential care, like STD and cancer screenings and
annual exams--often, for women of color or women living in low-income
communities to have access to this care.
All of this will be ripped away under the Republicans' ``Big Bad
Budget Bill,'' alongside the 16 million people they plan on kicking off
their health insurance with their Medicaid and affordable care cuts.
Before Roe was overturned, I warned repeatedly that the loss of
privacy--the loss of the right to make your most private decisions free
of government intrusion--would have a domino effect. Unfortunately,
that has become the reality. The overturn of Roe has not stopped an
abortion.
Since the Dobbs ruling, Republican lawmakers and conservative judges
have also taken aim at the use of IVF and contraception. A headline out
of Ohio, less than 1 week ago, reads:
Republican lawmakers in Ohio to propose total abortion and
IVF ban.
The endgame for Republicans here is a politician in every single exam
room and bedroom in America; a politician between you and your doctor,
between you and your spouse.
The overturn of Roe has stripped women in America of the right to
make their own healthcare decisions. It has stripped women of control
over their own bodies and has stripped women of their basic
constitutional rights.
Mr. President, ever since I chaired the first-ever congressional
hearing on access to abortion medication, back in 1990, I felt that
this was a fundamental right that women were entitled to. I am just as
committed today to battling against these draconian laws as long as it
takes to secure women the ability to make their own healthcare
decisions.
I see a number of my colleagues on the floor who have been eloquent
speakers for women's healthcare. I want to close by thanking my
colleague from Delaware, again, for championing all of us to be here at
this time to make sure that we made a difference and spoke out. We very
much appreciate your leadership.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, I rise today to mark 3 years since half
of America was stripped of their reproductive freedom. That is 3 years
of women having fewer constitutional rights and freedoms in this
country than their mothers and grandmothers; 3 years of women being
forced to travel hours out of State to access basic care; and 3 years
of Americans unable to make their own choices about their own bodies,
their own health, their own families, their own future.
In Wisconsin, women don't have to imagine what the consequences of
Roe v. Wade being overturned would be like. We lived it. For 15 months,
in my State, women were sent back to live under a law that was passed
before the Civil War. Yes, you heard me correctly--a law that was
passed in 1849, 70 years before women would get the right to vote and
only 1 year after the State of Wisconsin became a State.
Women who wanted to control their bodies had to drive hours. They had
to arrange childcare, take time off of work, and pay for lodging just
to access healthcare. Other pregnant women in our State bled in
hospital parking lots for hours until they were on the verge of death
before they were legally allowed to receive care.
Others, like Meagan, one of my constituents, found out that she and
her husband were expecting. They found that out in April of 2023. She
told me:
That day rivaled our wedding day for the happiest we'd ever
been.
But that joy didn't last. At her 20-week ultrasound, Meagan
discovered that her baby had severe abnormalities and likely would not
survive. What is worse, every day that Meagan remained pregnant, her
life was in danger too. But instead of grieving their loss in private
and at home, Meagan and her husband were forced to travel to Minnesota
to end her pregnancy.
She wrote to me last year:
The government claims that if my life is at risk, they
would make exceptions, but how sick does one need to be? Do I
need to be bleeding out before a doctor can intervene? Does
someone need to go septic before a procedure would be
performed?
The answers to those questions under Wisconsin's pre-Civil War
abortion ban was, sadly, yes.
Thankfully, Wisconsin has restored access to abortion care in three
counties. That still leaves women in 69 counties who face long drives
and wait times to see a doctor for care.
I will be the first to say that we have some serious work to do to
give women the full freedom to control their bodies. But instead of
listening to the vast majority of Americans and working in good faith
to restore Roe, my Republican colleagues are doing just the opposite.
The Republicans' ``Big Beautiful Betrayal'' is another step toward a
backdoor national abortion ban. Their bill will defund Planned
Parenthood, putting access to abortion care, once again, in jeopardy
for Wisconsin women. And for many Americans, Planned Parenthood clinics
are the only option they have for affordable healthcare, from basic
reproductive care to lifesaving cancer screenings.
This ``Big Beautiful Betrayal Bill'' says that the mother of three,
the young woman trying to make ends meet, the veteran in need of care,
and anyone else on Medicaid can't use their coverage at Planned
Parenthood for things like annual checkups, cancer screenings, birth
control--not abortion, just basic healthcare that everyone needs and
that my Republican colleagues, by the way, say they support.
But by doing this, it will defund one of the only abortion providers
in many places and take Republicans one step closer to their ultimate
goal of banning abortion nationwide.
It is no secret that this has been their plan. Since the day Roe was
decided, it has become the mission of so many Republicans to turn back
the clock and take away this constitutional right, this freedom.
And it all came to a head when our current President was last in
office. Our current President's litmus test when nominating Supreme
Court Justices was, of course, if they would rule to take away a
woman's right to abortion. I don't think I need to tell you what
happened next.
But overturning Roe was not enough for President Trump. In just the
past 5 months, he has worked to undermine a woman's right to lifesaving
abortion care under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act,
otherwise known as EMTALA. He has worked to freeze title X funding for
family planning and reproductive health services like birth control. He
has worked to remove medically sound, expert information on
reproductive care from government websites. And he has worked to
jeopardize protections for women who are harassed while accessing
clinics.
While Republicans advance their plan that will further restrict a
woman's right to choose, Democrats are fighting back. Today, alongside
every one of my Democratic colleagues, I introduced the Women's Health
Protection Act to do what most Americans want: restore reproductive
freedom for women nationwide.
I want to give a shout-out to my colleague Senator Blumenthal, with
whom I worked so closely on the Women's Health Protection Act, over so
many years.
This bill would tell Republicans to butt out of women's healthcare,
ensuring that States can't impose medically unnecessary restrictions,
like mandatory waiting periods or invasive ultrasounds, that infringe
upon a woman's right to choose.
Today, we are not just marking 3 years since Roe v. Wade was
overturned. We are marking 3 years of my Republican colleagues actively
blocking any progress to restore the right to choose. We are marking 3
years of women's lives being in danger because Republicans are in our
exam rooms, and lawyers across this country are truly playing doctors.
After 3 years of swearing abortion is an issue for the States, this
President is chipping away even further at this freedom, and my
Republican colleagues
[[Page S3509]]
are advancing a plan to further undercut access to affordable
reproductive care nationwide.
We are not giving up. We are with the two-thirds of Americans who
oppose the Dobbs decision and the fundamental rights that it stole from
millions of women in this country. We are going to fight every day
until those rights are restored.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am so honored to follow my colleague
from Wisconsin, who has been such a steadfast and strong partner in
this effort to advance the Women's Health Protection Act.
I will be honest in this Chamber. When we first introduced this
measure, almost 15 years ago, the idea that Roe v. Wade could or would
be tossed aside was unimaginable. It was firmly established law for
decades, relied on by American women and men.
In a stroke of catastrophic, misguided ruling, the Supreme Court cast
it aside, ignoring strong precedent and all the doctrines of law that
normally would apply. So the Women's Health Protection Act now is more
necessary than ever before, certainly than in the days when we first
offered it.
My own involvement, actually, in this issue began when I was a law
clerk to Justice Blackmun in the year after Roe v. Wade. There was
still controversy about whether Roe would survive. But in decision
after decision, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed it. And, in fact, as
a member of the Connecticut State Senate, I offered a bill, and it
passed, to codify Roe v. Wade in our State laws in Connecticut.
Connecticut has led the Nation proudly in protecting reproductive
rights, in safeguarding access to clinics where abortion services are
provided, in fighting for Planned Parenthood funding, in protecting
doctors who provide these critical services to women coming from other
States that may actually criminalize that kind of care.
But we know now what the challenge is and what we must do. The
Women's Health Protection Act should be the law of our land. But in the
meantime, we have to fight the efforts to handicap and straitjacket
women in their efforts simply to seek basic healthcare.
We are in the midst of an assault on women's healthcare. It is really
an attack on women and families.
Men have a stake in this fight. You cannot escape this issue simply
because you are a man. It affects you and your family as much as it
does women.
The decision in Dobbs stripped millions of women of the freedom to
make their own healthcare decisions. The idea that Dobbs would simply
return the issue of reproductive rights to the State was always
disingenuous. States across the country have created a full-blown
healthcare crisis in the chaos and confusion that has ensued.
Since Dobbs, more than 31 million women live in States where abortion
is banned or under the threat of banning it, and nearly 9 million women
live in the 12 States with bills proposing to bring homicide charges
against them for having an abortion.
The effects of Dobbs don't have to be a matter of speculation
anymore. I actually commissioned or requested a study from the GAO in
2022 about the economic effects of Dobbs. That report has just been
released 3 years later. My first reaction was: Why did it take so long?
My second reaction was: Thank goodness you took that long and you did
an honest and accurate appraisal of what the effects are.
Here is the bottom line: Dobbs has been a death sentence--literally,
a death sentence--for countless women, and it has been a condemnation
to financial disaster for many more.
This study shows, inextricably, the link between denial of healthcare
and the maternal mortality rate for women and their financial distress,
even if they survive.
The Trump administration has aggravated this problem in, literally,
just recent weeks. On June 19, 2025, a Trump-appointed Federal judge
struck down a Biden administration rule that strengthened privacy
protections for information related to productive healthcare, such as
abortion and gender-affirming care.
On March 5, 2025, President Trump announced his administration would
no longer enforce a Federal law that requires hospitals to provide
women abortion care in an emergency when their lives are threatened.
When, literally, they could die, no longer will emergency rooms be
required to provide that care.
On April 1 of this year, the Trump administration began withholding
tens of millions of dollars under title X in family grants for Planned
Parenthood and other organizations in our country that support critical
family planning efforts and preventive healthcare, including cancer
screening, pregnancy testing, birth control, treatment of sexually
transmitted infections, infertility services, and more. It is not just
efforts to prevent abortion; it is a war on women's health, launched by
this administration. And, unfortunately, this administration is just
getting started.
The fact is that unsafe and unintended pregnancies have huge costs in
lives and dollars, impacting all of us. That is why I am proud to live
in Connecticut that has expanded abortion care and ensured that women
in other States could access compassionate care if necessary.
But the attacks by Republicans continue, and they are attacks on
reproductive freedom, on women's healthcare, seeking now to restrict
access to abortion medication, refusing to recognize the right to use
contraceptives, working to defund preventive healthcare through
Medicaid in clinics like Planned Parenthood.
I am proud to continue this fight. It is a fight that we absolutely
must win. It may not be in the next days, but we will be fighting in
the next days against the provisions of this ``Big Ugly Betrayal'' that
so disgrace our Nation if passed.
I am grateful for all of the Members on our side who are joining us
today on this third anniversary of Dobbs to say: Enough is enough. We
need to protect reproductive freedoms from this onslaught against
women.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, right now, this administration is
causing so much chaos and confusion that it is sometimes hard to take
stock of the damage being done.
But the anniversary of the day today, for Roe v. Wade when it was
overturned, is a reminder that we can't let all of that chaos distract
us from the work being done to roll back women's reproductive rights
right under our noses.
I have to thank my colleague from Delaware Lisa Blunt Rochester and
all of my colleagues today for really bringing attention and focus to
the important work we do as Senators but really highlighting the impact
that decisions made by some of our colleagues, including those in the
White House, are having a devastating impact across this country on
women and women's healthcare rights.
One of the things that is happening right now is this Republican tax
bill that they are trying to force through Congress right now. This tax
bill essentially guts reproductive healthcare in this country. The
Republicans' billionaire tax giveaway bill, as we know it, is a bill
that will cut $800 billion in Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for the
wealthiest Americans. But the legislation that passed the House would
also decimate women's healthcare. Not only would it force cuts to
critical services in this country, but it also cuts off Medicaid
funding for Planned Parenthood.
That Medicaid funding wouldn't be going toward abortions. Planned
Parenthood providers distribute birth control, conduct wellness exams,
test for and treat STIs, and provide lifesaving cancer screenings.
For many Americans with Medicaid, especially in underserved areas,
Planned Parenthood is the only accessible source of this care.
Defunding it, which is what the Republicans want to do in this
reconciliation bill, jeopardizes basic healthcare services that more
than 1 million men and women rely on.
It is already outrageous that so many Planned Parenthood health
centers in anti-choice States around the country have been forced to
close over the last several years, but if they are prohibited from
treating patients with Medicaid nationwide, many clinics--even in
States where abortion remains legal, like my State in Nevada--may be
forced to close their doors.
[[Page S3510]]
In States like mine, where women have access to essential
reproductive care, Republicans are working to strip that access away,
ignoring the will of States like Nevada that have chosen to protect
these rights.
Republican legislators in States across the country are also quietly
working to gut access to reproductive care. Last November, voters in
seven different States approved ballot measures to protect or expand
reproductive rights. But in the months since, extremist politicians in
more than half of those States have tried to ignore the will of their
voters and push new restrictions on abortion access.
And in several other States, anti-choice politicians are working to
block similar ballot initiatives in the future. They are trying to
ignore what people have clearly voted for, and then they are trying to
make it so people can't actually vote on those issues at all--because
let's be clear, for anti-choice politicians, this is about controlling
women.
Let me give you an example. In Arizona, voters went to the polls last
November and overwhelmingly chose to enshrine abortion protections in
their State constitution. But since then, Republican politicians, in
their State legislature, have been trying to pass bills that would
limit the use of medication abortion and ban doctors from even
informing women about abortion as a potential treatment option.
Or how about Missouri, where anti-choice politicians are trying to
get a measure on the ballot that would overturn the abortion rights
protections Missouri voters just approved last November?
These plots to subvert the will of voters and roll back women's
rights in the States may not be capturing everyone's attention right
now, but it is happening. We need to shed light on it because it is
just as dangerous as some of the harmful policies coming out of this
administration.
We can't forget that this administration is also taking steps to take
away women's reproductive rights without any input from legislators at
all.
The Food and Drug Administration has appointed commissioners who want
to reexamine the safety of the abortion pill, mifepristone. And, no
surprise, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.
Kennedy, Jr., is encouraging it. He has already asked the FDA to
``review the latest data on mifepristone.''
Secretary Kennedy is raising questions and injecting doubt about this
medication that has already been proven to be safe and effective over
the years. This is a man who, at one time, said he believed it was
``always the woman's right to choose.''
Mifepristone accounts for over 60 percent of abortions nationwide.
Any attempts to restrict access to this medication would jeopardize the
health and autonomy of women in Nevada and across the country. This is
an overt tactic by the administration to continue to take away access
to the abortion pill nationwide.
In fact, the Trump administration made it more clear than ever that
they are not concerned about women's safety when they eliminated
guidance that hospitals have to provide abortions in emergency
situations.
We have a law in this country that hospitals that receive Federal
funding are required to provide medical care to stabilize a health
emergency, including for pregnant patients. In cases where an abortion
is necessary to stabilize a patient, hospitals are obligated to provide
that care. It is called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active
Labor Act--or EMTALA, as many people know it.
I want to stress that EMTALA is the law of the land, and emergency
abortion care is protected under EMTALA. But the problem is that this
administration is telling women they are unwilling to enforce these
protections. That is incredibly dangerous, and it ignores the laws.
It might not be front-page news every day, but when you take all of
these actions together, it is clear that this administration and
Republicans at every level of government are taking the steps they need
to implement a nationwide abortion ban.
We have to remain vigilant and demand changes when these harmful
policies emerge because we know that anti-choice politicians all across
the country, including here in Washington, will continue to push them
and take away women's access to healthcare.
It is happening at the Supreme Court, too, where the Justices who
struck down Roe v. Wade are taking up multiple abortion rights cases.
So as we mark the anniversary of the decision to overturn Roe v.
Wade, which took the constitutional right to an abortion away from
every woman in this country, I want to thank my colleagues who are
standing strong and standing with me today and every day in this fight.
We will never stop pushing back against this administration's--and
any other anti-choice politician's--attempts to make women second-class
citizens in America.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
following Senators be permitted to speak for up to 4 minutes each prior
to the scheduled vote: Hassan, Klobuchar, Blunt Rochester, and now me.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague Senator Lisa
Blunt Rochester for holding this floor block to mark a grim--very
grim--anniversary in America.
Three years ago today, as we know, MAGA Justices on the Court
eliminated the protections of Roe in the disastrous, terrible, nasty
Dobbs decision. In one fell swoop, hard-right Justices overturned
decades of precedent and ripped away the fundamental right to choose
for millions of American women.
When the Dobbs decision was leaked, I stood here on the floor and
said it would be ``one of the worst and most damaging opinions the
Court has handed down in modern history,'' and unfortunately, 3 years
later, that much has proved to be true.
Today, 21 States have significantly restricted the right to choose.
At least 14 States have passed what are practically total abortion
bans. In a State like Texas, maternal mortality is spiking. One in five
Americans today has to travel great distances, even cross State lines,
and wait weeks or more to get the care they need. People are dying
because of the Dobbs decision. And--listen to this--State-level
restrictions on abortion, combined with the lack of Federal
protections, are costing the U.S. economy $133 billion nationally.
Without reproductive healthcare protections, fewer women are
participating in the workforce, stunting our economy. It is utterly
regressive.
Around the Capitol today are women telling their stories, and they
are amazing and they are heart-wrenching. I stood alongside several
reproductive rights advocates, including two women whose lives have
been upended because of Dobbs: Shanette Williams, the mother of Amber
Thurman, the first woman recorded in Georgia to die because of lack of
abortion care; and Ashley Ortiz, who couldn't get the care she needed
because of Arizona's extreme abortion ban. Shanette and Ashley's
stories are just two examples of the irreparable harm Dobbs has
inflicted. There are countless more stories like theirs we will never
hear about.
The anti-choice fanatics in the Republican Party spent decades
campaigning to end Roe. Now that the damage is done, Republicans aren't
backing down on this issue; they are doubling down. As I speak,
Republicans are trying to jam through one of the most extreme, radical
anti-choice provisions in their ``Big Ugly Betrayal.'' Specifically,
they have snuck two provisions into their bill--one defunding Planned
Parenthood and one eliminating coverage for comprehensive reproductive
care.
So Dobbs may have set us back, but today, with Senator Baldwin as our
lead, we will again introduce the Women's Health Protection Act to
ensure that healthcare providers have the statutory right to provide
patients abortion services free from bans and restrictions.
Republicans know to their core how deeply unpopular their abortion
bans are, and that is why many Senate Republicans tried to run away
from the Dobbs decision at first. But, unfortunately, they are back to
their normal ways, trying to achieve a total, nationwide abortion ban.
Senate Democrats
[[Page S3511]]
will continue to stand together and fight back against Republicans
every step of the way.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues to
stand up for the freedom of American women as we mark the anniversary
of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, and I want to thank
Senator Blunt Rochester and my colleagues for leading this effort on
the floor this afternoon.
In New Hampshire, we proudly call ourselves the Live Free or Die
State, and today, I would like to take a moment to reflect on what the
Dobbs decision--a decision that represents the largest attack on
freedom in modern American political history--means not only for the
future of American women but, even more fundamentally, for freedom in
our democracy itself.
It is difficult to keep up with the Trump administration's attacks on
freedom, with attacks on our rights to due process, freedom of speech
and expression, freedom to vote, and more. Perhaps the President hopes
that with each cascading outrage, the American people will forget that
he set in motion the events that led to the Supreme Court taking away
freedom from half of our population--the fundamental freedom of a woman
to make her own health decisions. But, of course, we haven't forgotten.
We Americans have never been inclined to forget attacks on our
liberties.
What did the Dobbs decision mean? It took away a woman's freedom to
make deeply personal health decisions, the freedom to decide when and
if to start a family, the freedom to get lifesaving care when a woman's
health is imperiled while pregnant.
This is more than a freedom to get a specific medical procedure. In
practice, we are talking about the freedom to chart one's own future--a
freedom which should be enjoyed by all free and equal citizens in a
democracy. But with the Dobbs decision, for the first time in our
country's history, our daughters are now less free than their mothers
were at their age. Since the Dobbs decision, we have become a country
where a fundamental freedom can vanish once a woman crosses a State
line. We have returned to a kind of sectionalism of bygone eras that
history should have taught us to avoid where women who are pregnant and
live in States with draconian laws banning abortion know that in the
event of a dire medical emergency, they may have to make a long drive
to cross State lines or run the risk of being thrown in jail for just
trying to get lifesaving care.
This isn't hypothetical. Already, lives have been imperiled and even
lost in experiences that we have heard from Georgia, Florida, Texas,
and in States all across the country.
Indeed, at this very moment, Members of this body are seeking to pass
legislation--the Republican budget bill--which would, among other
measures, make it impossible for many women to get the care they need
and shut down women's healthcare clinics all across the country. Their
legislation is effectively the final step in establishing a backdoor
national abortion ban.
So, to my Republican colleagues: Please stop singing the same song to
us that the women of America are being alarmist--a song that we heard
before Roe was overturned and that we have continued to hear since. I
want to know just when exactly in the process of having one's freedom
stripped away are we allowed to become alarmed. Are we only allowed to
be concerned about losing a fundamental freedom once that freedom has
become nothing more than a memory?
Ultimately, behind all of this talk of laws and precedent, of State
statutes and Federal, behind all the medical discussion about women's
healthcare, the anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning Roe begs
us to ask a question as simple and as fundamental as they come, a
question that the opponents of reproductive freedom and the President
himself ought to answer: When our Declaration of Independence declared
that all are created equal, does that promise belong to American women
or do we believe that truth is not self-evident after all?
When the suffragettes at Seneca Falls wrote that they ``insist women
have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong
to them as citizens of the United States,'' do we still believe those
words or were the suffragettes wrong?
Do we believe that we are better off when everyone gets to chart
their own future? In the land of the free, do the full blessings of
liberty belong to our daughters as well as our sons?
Can a democracy like ours persist when, divided by State lines, half
its people live half-free? In the end, that is what this debate is
really all about.
So what is it, on this anniversary, that America's women ask for? It
is simple. They want what all Americans want. Their aspiration is to be
free. And so long as we wish to call ourselves the world's greatest
democracy, the President and this body would do well to remember our
country's promise and heed their call.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today, on the third anniversary
of the Supreme Court's decision to shred nearly five decades of
precedent protecting a woman's right to make her own healthcare
decisions, to say that now is the time to protect freedom.
I appreciated the words of Senator Hassan from the State of New
Hampshire, a State grounded in freedom, for her focus on freedom. I
also thank Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester for bringing us together today.
In the 3 years since the Supreme Court went against the 70 percent of
Americans who believe that healthcare decisions should be made by a
woman, with her family and her doctor, instead of by politicians, women
have been at the mercy of a patchwork of State laws that are creating
chaos when it comes to accessing reproductive healthcare.
Today, 20 States partially or fully ban abortion, affecting more than
31 million women across the country. I ask why women in Minnesota
should have different rights--different fundamental rights--than women
in Texas, why a woman in Oregon should have different rights than a
woman in Georgia.
Women are also being forced away from emergency rooms and left to
travel hundreds of miles for healthcare, and doctors are being
threatened with prosecution for just doing their jobs.
In Texas, a pregnant teenager died after being denied care at three
different hospitals. I will never forget the gut-wrenching testimony I
heard from another woman, Amanda Zurawski, at a Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing. She nearly died from sepsis after being forced to
carry her stillborn daughter Willow to term due to Texas's abortion
ban. It was a heartbreaking story.
President Trump has made clear that he was and is, in his own words,
proudly the person who ended Roe v. Wade, and his administration is
continuing its assault on women's reproductive freedom. The Trump
administration has rolled back policies that protect access to
lifesaving abortion care during medical crises. It has announced it
will be putting mifepristone under review despite the fact that the
American Medical Association stated that ``there is no evidence that
people are harmed by having access to this safe and effective
medication'' that has been on the market, I would add, for more than
two decades and is safely used in 90 countries.
But the Trump administration has decided: Well, we know better. We
know better than the American Medical Association. We know better than
the women of the country that have been using this medication safely.
We know better than 90 other countries.
And the President is putting forward nominees to the Federal bench,
including ones I have recently questioned, with a demonstrated
hostility to reproductive freedom.
As if this wasn't enough, congressional Republicans are also seeking
to pass a budget that would leave 1.1 million patients who rely on
Planned Parenthood health centers for critical and lifesaving services
like cancer screening, STI tests and treatment, and birth control,
among other things, with nowhere to go.
We are at a pivotal moment for women's rights in this country. Are we
going to continue to move forward or are we going to be sent further
back in time? Enough is enough.
As my colleagues have made clear today, we refuse to back down. We
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refuse to give up. We will not settle for a world in which our
daughters and our granddaughters have fewer rights than their moms and
fewer rights than their grandmas.
We need to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade into law once and
for all and guarantee the right to access care. That is why we must
pass the Women's Health Protection Act--the first step in addressing
the devastating reproductive healthcare crisis that Dobbs unleashed--
and keep fighting any effort to deprive women of the healthcare we need
and deserve.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Ms. BLUNT ROCHESTER. Mr. President, as I close out this time, I had
written prepared remarks for my closing, but a word keeps ringing over
and over in my head, and that word is ``freedom.'' As I stand here, why
today is so important is because it is again another chip chipping at
our freedoms.
I stand here as a Black woman who has, in our history, knowledge of
what it means for your bodily autonomy to be taken.
I stand here, today, looking at a picture of my granddaughter, who I
want to have the same rights that I had growing up.
Today, we mark a 3-year anniversary, but we also have an opportunity
to commit to what our future will look like.
This very week, we potentially will see a bill on this floor that
will again chip away--chip away--at healthcare, when we know that 40
percent of the births in this country are through Medicaid; chip away
at our rights.
So I thank my colleagues for their powerful words today. I thank all
of the advocates who came and spoke to us today, all of the individuals
who are still fighting the good fight to make sure that we have the
rights that we deserve.
I will end with a story of an individual who I just met today. Her
name is Nancy Davis, and she is a patient in Louisiana.
She said:
When I was 10 weeks pregnant, doctors informed me that my
baby had acrania, a rare condition that was fatal for my
baby, and dangerous for me.
Naturally, I was heartbroken and scared, but I trusted that
I would receive the necessary medical treatment so that my
family and I could begin healing.
Unfortunately, I was wrong.
Just a few weeks before I received my diagnosis, the
Supreme Court issued the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's
Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating
the legal right to abortion.
The fallout from that decision was fast, with states across
the country starting to enforce cruel and dangerous abortion
bans.
My home state of Louisiana has some of the strictest
abortion laws in the country, and even though I needed to
terminate my pregnancy to protect my own health and safety, I
was told I could not receive care at the hospital in Baton
Rouge.
Instead of being able to process the diagnosis and grieve
the loss of the pregnancy at home with my family, I had to
scramble to find a way out of Louisiana to access abortion
care.
I found myself in a situation I never thought I would be
in, forced to travel 1,500 miles to get the care that I
needed and deserved.
I experienced not only a denial of necessary medical care,
but a denial of compassion, and my right to make my own
decisions about my own health.
I felt dehumanized and stripped of my most fundamental
rights.
I knew what I needed to do to protect my health, and my
doctors agreed. But local lawmakers who will never know me or
understand my situation had the final say.
The system failed me, and I am just as outraged today as I
was then.
Today, let's turn that outrage into action. Spread the word about
what is coming to this floor. Make sure that people stand up, use their
voices, use this moment.
Freedom. That is what this is about--freedom.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.