Abortion

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, over the last year, women's reproductive rights have come under a new level of assault. From Alabama to Missouri, to Texas, to Georgia, and beyond, over 300 new restrictions have been proposed in 39 States--bans on abortion as early as 6 weeks, so-called heartbeat bills, arbitrary waiting periods, and restrictions on clinics so severe that they force any center that performs an abortion to close down, leaving a few of our States with no more than a single clinic.

Ten such bills have now passed into law. These restrictions fly in the face of public opinion. The vast majority of the American public don't want to see Roe overturned or a woman's right to choose curtailed so severely as to render it meaningless.

I understand why many of my colleagues here in the Senate don't want to associate themselves with these extreme anti-abortion laws. Some of them have even publicly opposed the law passed by Alabama's Republicans, including the House Republican leader and the President. But let's face it. There is a sleight of hand going on here, because while many of my colleagues don't support these policies out loud, they are, at the same time, confirming judges to the Federal bench with horrendous records on women's rights, many of whom hold extreme views on Roe. These judges, in many ways, have just as much power as State legislatures to restrict a woman's right to choose and limit access to contraceptives through the courts.

Just look at some of the judges the Republican Senate has approved in the past 2 years with almost unanimous support on the Republican side. Look at Leonard Steven Grasz, who wrote about the ``moral bankruptcy that's the legacy of Roe v. Wade.''

What about Amy Coney Barrett? She said Roe v. Wade had been ``erroneously decided'' and called the ACA's birth control provisions ``an assault on religious liberty.'' A lot of these judges are not just against abortion. They are against contraception. She is on the bench for life. Amy Coney Barrett, who said that, is on the bench for life and on President Trump's short list for the Supreme Court.

Let's not forget Justice Kavanaugh, who refused to affirm that Roe was settled law and now sits on the one body with the power to overturn it.

Just last week, Republicans confirmed Wendy Vitter, who said Planned Parenthood kills 150,000 a year and once pushed the idea that contraceptives cause cancer.

We have more coming down the pipeline. Soon the Senate may consider the nomination of Stephen Clark, who belonged to an organization called Lawyers for Life. He once compared Roe v. Wade to the Dred Scott case.

So Republicans are playing a cynical long game here. They refuse to comment on the anti-abortion bills but are content to install anti- choice judges across the Federal bench who will uphold many of these very same laws. It is hypocritical. It is sort of like that old routine. They are saying: No, no, no, I am not for these laws. Judges, approve them. I am supporting judges who approve them.

It is not fair, it is not right, it is cynical, and the American people are going to get wise to it. We are watching the endgame of a long and concerted campaign by the far right to erode a woman's right to choose through the courts. From the moment that Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, the most extreme elements of the Republican Party have plotted its demise.

The Federalist Society was founded with the intent of cultivating a generation of judges loyal to conservative causes. Its founder, Leonard Leo, was, above all, an anti-choice advocate--some would say, even further, a fanatic. Now that they have a Republican President and a Republican Senate, the Federalist Society can push judge after judge after judge onto the bench with barely a delay and with barely a discussion, where they will have the power to severely curtail a woman's right to choose.

My Republican friends who profess opposition or indifference to these extreme anti-abortion bills while voting for hard-right, anti-Roe judges are engaging in subterfuge, if not hypocrisy.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source