No. We cannot go back to the days when women had to risk their lives to end an unwanted pregnancy.
This week, the Supreme Court heard the most direct challenge to a woman’s right to choose since the
Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.
And let's be clear. From the day of that decision almost 50 years ago until today, right-wing politicians have worked tirelessly to reverse it and to make it more difficult for women to control their own bodies.
They've done it through increasingly restrictive abortion legislation in state after state.
They’ve done it through the Hyde Amendment.
They’ve done it by attacking Planned Parenthood and shutting down clinics.
They've done it by intimidating women who access clinics and doctors who work in those clinics.
They’ve done it by making women travel hundreds of miles for an abortion and wait weeks for appointments.
And what really gets me about this issue is the extraordinary hypocrisy of my Republican colleagues. Every day on the floor of the Senate I hear Republicans, again and again, spout their right-wing mantra. "Get the government out of people’s lives." "Get the government off the backs of the American people." "End the nanny state." "Let people, not the government, decide what's good for them." And on and on the rhetoric goes.
When it comes to ending the disgrace of the United States being the only major country on Earth that does not guarantee health care as a right, their response:
"Gotta keep the government out of people’s lives."
When it comes to stopping the drug companies from being able to charge outrageous prices for the lifesaving medicine people need in this country:
"Gotta keep the government out of people’s lives."
When it comes to asking people who want to buy a handgun or an assault weapon to pass a simple background check:
"Gotta keep the government out of people’s lives."
But when it comes to telling every woman in America what she can or cannot do with her own body, about whether or not she can access reproductive health care, now all of a sudden my Republican colleagues are exponents of very big and oppressive government. Whether it is at the local, state or federal level they believe that politicians should make the decisions regarding what is a deeply personal decision for women.
What hypocrisy!
As you know, this current Supreme Court challenge,
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, would mean governments in many states would have the ability to make it virtually impossible for women to access an abortion.
And we are not just talking about so-called “red states,” as if that wasn’t bad enough. We're also talking about "purple states” where Republicans have gerrymandered themselves into control of state legislatures.
And the truth is, despite overwhelming opposition from the American people, there is a very strong chance that this conservative Supreme Court will vote to overturn
Roe v. Wade.
That is not acceptable. We cannot sit back and allow this Supreme Court to put in jeopardy the privacy rights of all Americans and a woman’s right to control her own body.
The consequences would be disastrous and threaten the very lives of American women — and that's not an exaggeration. The reality is that banning legal medically-assisted abortion and forcing women back into the arms of quacks to get the care they need will quite literally kill women.
No. We cannot go back to the days when women had to risk their lives to end an unwanted pregnancy.
The decision about abortion must remain a decision for a woman and her doctor to make. Or, as my Republican friends would say, we have got to keep government out of their lives.
So Congress must act.
We must pass legislation that codifies
Roe v. Wade as the law of the land in this country. And if there aren’t 60 votes to do it, and there are not, we must reform the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes.
In no state in America does support for an abortion ban reach even 25%. We must put an end to extremist attacks on abortion rights once and for all.
In solidarity,
