Whole Womens Health v. Hellerstedt

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, thank you to the Senator from California for her long advocacy on behalf of women across this country to be able to access the health care they choose.

Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. At its core, this is a case about whether extreme rightwing politicians will be allowed to block women from exercising their constitutionally protected health care rights, rights that have been affirmed by the Supreme Court for more than four decades.

For women across the country, for our daughters, and for our granddaughters, there is truly a lot at stake. I have been so inspired to see women of all ages from across the country standing up now to share their stories and to make sure the Supreme Court knows why politicians should not be able to make women's health care decisions.

In fact, 113 lawyers submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court explaining the difference that constitutionally protected reproductive rights have made in their own lives. The stories they tell are incredibly powerful. One partner at a major law firm wrote that after three miscarriages, ``my husband and I were delighted when I again became pregnant in December 1999 and safely made it past the `danger zone' of the first trimester, passing an amnio with flying colors. [But] five weeks later, when I was heading into the sixth month of my pregnancy, I returned to the doctor for a routine ultrasound and the doctor immediately detected a problem.''

Her baby had a rare heart defect, so severe that he was already in congestive heart failure and would be born only to suffer if he survived at all.

After talking with her doctors and her husband, they made the decision to terminate her pregnancy. She wrote:

As a woman, a mother and a lawyer, I know I did the right thing. I have shared my story with my children, and hope that should my daughter ever find herself in a position similar to mine, she will enjoy the same rights that were available to me.

It should go without saying, but politicians have absolutely no place in such a deeply personal, extraordinarily difficult decision. Unfortunately, the Texas clinic shutdown law being challenged in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt--a law that has been driven by extreme rightwing politicians who want to undermine women's access to health care--would mean the exact opposite. This law and laws like the one that was allowed to stand in Louisiana just last week places burdens that health experts, such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, say are medically unnecessary on clinics in order to shut them down and make it harder for women to exercise their constitutionally protected reproductive rights.

If the Supreme Court fails to block this law, three-quarters of the clinics that provide abortion services, as well as other health care in Texas, would be forced to close, leaving 5.4 million women in Texas with just 10 clinics statewide. Hundreds of thousands of Texas women would have to drive 300 miles round trip just to get care they need.

If that is not an undue burden, I don't know what is. A ruling upholding the Texas shutdown law wouldn't just impact women in Texas, it would make it easier nationwide for politicians to interfere with women's health care and block them from exercising their constitutional right. That would be the wrong direction for women. It would be the wrong direction for families and for our country as a whole.

That is why tomorrow women and men from all over the country will be outside the Supreme Court standing up for women's health, rights, and opportunity. I will be very proud to be right there with them because we are going to be sending a very clear message. A right means nothing without the ability to exercise that right.

I hope the Justices listen, realizing how much this ruling means to women's lives. Ultimately, I hope they will rule in favor of ensuring women's health and rights continue to progress, rather than going backward. I know our country will be stronger for it.

Mr. President, I express my appreciation to Senator Whitehouse and all of our colleagues who have worked very hard to bring this bill before us on the floor, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. It lays out key steps toward addressing the crisis of prescription drug abuse and heroin addiction, which is ruining and costing lives nationwide, including in my home State of Washington.

I hear about this epidemic from Washington State families and communities far too often. Parents ask me what we are doing in Congress to help families like theirs who are trying desperately to help their children who are struggling to escape addiction. I am told about mothers and fathers who developed opioid addictions after being prescribed pain medication, with devastating consequences for their families.

When I go to speak with local sheriffs and police chiefs, they say they are most often the ones responding to these crises and that our country needs to do better than allowing those struggling with addiction to cycle in and out of the criminal justice system. They tell me that heroin use is only becoming more widespread in our communities, especially amongst our young people.

Penny LeGate is a former news anchor from Seattle and she knows this all too well. Her daughter, Marah Williams, had a happy childhood, ballet lessons, softball, a close-knit family, but in middle school, as she began to struggle with ADHD, depression, and anxiety, she also started experimenting with drinking and drugs. For years her parents tried everything they could do. As Penny will tell you, Marah did too. She fought hard to break her addiction and to keep her life moving forward, but tragically, when Marah began using OxyContin and then heroin, the grip of addiction was just too much. Marah died of a heroin overdose in the basement of her family home when she was just 19 years old. This is a parent's worst nightmare. It is happening to parents across my State, across the country, and it has to stop.

I am pleased there is bipartisan momentum toward giving our communities the tools and resources they need to tackle this disease. The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, CARA, includes efforts to strengthening education, prevention, and treatment efforts around prescription drug abuse and heroin use. It will cut down on inappropriate use of pain medication that gets so many people addicted to opioids in the first place and would make it easier for people to safely dispose of pain medication so it doesn't get in the wrong hands. This legislation will also help police departments get access to naloxone, a drug that counteracts the effect of an overdose, which is something police chiefs I have spoken to make clear they need--and more.

The bill we are debating right now would be a good step in the right direction, but it can be even better. As many of my Democratic colleagues have made clear, a problem as serious and urgent as this epidemic deserves a serious, urgent response. So we should enact the policies in this bill and at the same time we should also make sure families and communities will see additional tools and resources as quickly as possible. That is why I strongly support the emergency investments proposed by the senior Senators from New Hampshire, West Virginia, the junior Senator from Massachusetts, and others. Their proposal will actually help our States and local governments, as well as families who are on the frontlines of this battle, by providing the resources to prevent opioid abuse and expand access to the treatment that so many families are seeking.

I am hopeful Republicans will work with us to move this alongside this important bill so families don't have to wait for Federal resources that this crisis desperately needs.

As I have laid out, the legislation we are debating today would go a long way toward tackling the epidemic of prescription drug abuse and heroin addiction, especially if it includes an emergency funding that can offer relief and support quickly, but given the strong belief on both sides of the aisle that far too many people are falling through the cracks in our mental health and substance abuse systems, I believe we can and should do more to build on this CARA legislation in the coming months.

We should pass this bill, but then I hope all of our colleagues will not just get up and walk away. We should build on this rare moment of bipartisan agreement, stay at the table, and keep working beyond this bill to strengthen mental health care and substance abuse treatment in our country.

So even while we are debating this very first step, I wish to lay out just a few of the goals that should guide us as we look past this, goals I believe that can be met if we work together and take this crisis seriously.

First, mental health is every bit as important as physical health, and we should make sure we work together to make sure they are both treated equally in our health care system; secondly, we should do more to break down the barriers that make it difficult to address patients' mental and physical health care needs at the same time; third, at a time when half of all U.S. counties lack access to a social worker, a psychologist or a psychiatrist, we need to strengthen our mental health care workforce so patients and families can get care when and where they need it, whether that is at a hospital or in their own community; fourth, we need to recognize that mental health care is important at every stage of life and ensure our system can address every patient's needs, whether that patient is a child or an adult; and, finally, continue taking steps to address the opioid abuse epidemic, I believe we can do more to expand access to medication-assisted treatment and offer our States more resources to respond to crisis situations, including by strengthening prescription drug monitoring programs.

My colleagues on the Judiciary Committee have worked very hard to improve prevention and treatment of opioid addiction, especially among individuals who pass through the criminal justice system. I believe we need to ensure these tools and resources are available to all Americans struggling with addiction and ensure that our health care system is equipped to address addiction as a disease.

I have been proud to work with the junior Senator from Connecticut and other members of the HELP Committee on both sides of the aisle, led by Chairman Alexander, the senior Senator from Tennessee, on a path toward meeting those goals. I am very hopeful we will be able to reach agreement on some additional steps that would make a difference for the many families and communities who are struggling to support loved ones in need.

Mr. President, it goes without saying that in this divided government we don't agree on much, but there is some important bipartisan agreement on the need to close the gaps in our mental health care system and tackle the crisis of opioid addiction. So I hope we can pass the legislation we are debating today, along with improvements that ensure it helps patients and families as quickly as possible, but we shouldn't stop there. We should seize this opportunity, work together, and continue making progress for the families and communities we serve.

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