Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. WARREN. Madam President, a little over a month ago I came to the floor to honor the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a trailblazer, an icon, and a friend. I shared what she meant as a personal hero for me and as a role model to millions of other women. I discussed her groundbreaking work and how much of what she fought for is now on the line.

I talked about the message Ruth left before she died, stating her ``most fervent wish'' that her replacement not be named ``until a new President is installed.''

It has been 37 days since Ruth died. I miss her. America misses her. It has also been 37 days since Mitch McConnell declared he would disregard Ruth's ``most fervent'' wish and move ahead with a corrupt and illegitimate process to fill her seat on the Supreme Court. Just 8 days--8 days--before the election, when tens of millions of Americans have already cast their ballots and just 15 days before the Supreme Court will hear a case that could overturn the Affordable Care Act, Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and their Republican buddies are shoving aside the wishes of the American people in order to steal the Supreme Court seat.

Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans violated the long- established rules of the Judiciary Committee to rush their nominee through, giving each other a wink and a nod before they turned a blind eye to their own rulebreaking. They even violated the rule Mitch McConnell made up in order to keep one of President Obama's nominees off the Court long before anyone was voting: no confirmations of Justices in an election year. So they made up the rules, then they broke those same rules. They cheated.

Why? Why was it so important that they were willing to turn their backs on the very rules that they had put in place? Why rush through this nomination?

Why? Because the Republican Party is scared that they can't win through the democratic process, scared that they can't win by playing by the rules, that they can't win when the American people decide the outcome, that they can't win when elections matter.

What we are seeing today is the last gasp of a desperate party--a party working to undermine our democracy so that they can keep pushing their extremist agenda just a little longer, a party that doesn't reflect the views of a majority of Americans or the values that we hold dear.

This is a party beholden to billionaires and extremists that is desperate to keep its grasp on power and willing to break any rule, any precedent, or any principle to hold on to that power just a little longer. The Republican Senators bat down every concern.

No Supreme Court nominee has been confirmed this close to a Presidential election. They say: No problem. Republican Senators plunge ahead with an illegitimate nomination made by a morally bankrupt President.

The Rose Garden ceremony to celebrate the nomination turns into a coronavirus superspreader event. Republican Senators brush it off. Republican Senators will press ahead with hearings while members of the Judiciary Committee are in quarantine, and some of them refused to get tested.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are dead and millions are waiting for the Federal Government to finally show up and fight this pandemic. Republican Senators say: Sorry, no time. Senate Republicans have better things to do than pass a relief package--things like steal a Supreme Court seat.

Here is the ugly truth: Donald Trump and his Republican buddies know that confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Nation's highest Court is their path to advance an extremist agenda long after the country is fed up and disgusted with their failures. In the middle of an election, in the depths of a pandemic, their extremist agenda is all that matters, and that is why they are so desperate to ram her nomination through the Senate.

The confirmation hearings were a sham. The conclusion was foregone, and the nominee spent days ducking and dodging legitimate questions about where she stands on issues of crucial importance to the American people. It was little more than a PR stunt.

But what the nominee refused to say was actually very informative. She refused to say whether the ruling upholding the right to contraception was correct. She refused to say whether the government can criminalize a same-sex relationship. She refused to say whether it is wrong to separate children from their parents in order to deter immigration. She even refused to say whether climate change is happening and whether it poses a threat to human beings.

This was no hearing. This was a farce.

Their attempt to remain silent on key issues spoke volumes. It shows that she believes these critical rights, protections, and values are debatable, up for grabs. And Barrett's refusal to embrace these commonsense values shows just how out of step, how extreme, Barrett is and will continue to be if she is confirmed.

Let's be real. We already know what Barrett is all about. We know why corporate interests and rightwing zealots are so excited about her, why so many Republicans will vote to confirm her, and why Trump, who has handed the judiciary over to the Federalist Society, has nominated her. It is because she will advance their extremist, conservative agenda.

So her question-dodging isn't a problem for them. It is part of their strategy to get her onto the Court.

They know where she stands, and so do the American people. We already know because her record is clear.

Take reproductive rights. President Trump pledged to nominate Supreme Court Justices who would overturn Roe. Listen to him. He said he would only appoint someone who would overturn Roe, and then he picked Barrett. In 2006, Barrett signed a newspaper ad calling for the end of Roe and describing Roe as ``barbaric.'' She was a member of an anti- choice group while on the University of Notre Dame faculty.

And how would she overturn Roe? After all, Roe is the current law of the land. But Barrett has that all worked out. She holds a dangerously radical view on legal precedent.

In a 2013 Law Review article, she suggested that the Supreme Court is not strictly bound by precedent and that public debate about Roe leaves open the possibility of overruling it. To state it plainly, Barrett believes women cannot be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies. She is a clear and present danger to Roe.

When it comes to the Affordable Care Act, again, listen to Trump himself. He said he would only nominate judges who will end the ACA law, judges who would take away healthcare coverage from millions of Americans. He picked Barrett.

Barrett's record indicates that is exactly what she will do--work to gut key provisions that protect millions of Americans. She criticized Chief Justice Roberts' opinion in 2012 upholding a critical part of the ACA, saying that he ``pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute.''

In a media interview in 2015, she said that in another Supreme Court decision that upheld the ACA, the dissenting Justices who wanted to overturn the ACA had the ``better of the legal argument.''

While claiming just to follow the text of the law, Barrett's record shows that her purported ``textualist'' approach is nothing but a facade, merely a cover for her to reach a result that will further the interests of those with money and power.

Barrett's record isn't just cringeworthy; it is downright alarming. On November 10, just 1 week after election day, the Supreme Court will hear a case that will determine the fate of the Affordable Care Act. And right now, 17 cases that could undermine the right to abortion care are one step away from the Supreme Court. Twenty-one States are ready to go. They have already drafted laws they can pass immediately--laws that could be used to restrict abortion in case Roe is overturned.

And it is not just reproductive rights and access to healthcare that are on the line. Trump and his Republican enablers want a Justice who will rubberstamp Trump's racist and xenophobic attacks on immigrants, from ripping away protections for our Dreamers to rewriting the census. Once again, this is exactly what Donald Trump told us he would do after he lost earlier court cases.

Trump and his Republican enablers also want a Justice who will turn back the clock even more on workers' rights. Trump wants a Justice who will erode workers' ability to join together and fight for fair pay and working conditions and to push back against employment discrimination. We know this is what they want because those are the policies the Trump administration has pursued and what Barrett's anti-worker record tells us that she will do.

There is another thing about Barrett's record that deserves special attention just 8 days before the election. Trump and his Republican enablers want a Justice who will strip away voting rights, especially from communities of color and marginalized communities.

Trump wants a Supreme Court Justice who will help undermine our democracy. We know this because Trump already told us his game plan to do it. Trump and his Republican enablers are working to make voting as difficult, confusing, and scary as possible, and they are using every tool in order to do it.

Trump has lied repeatedly about mail-in voting. He has falsely claimed it is a source of rampant fraud. Trump's lawyers have sued States that have taken action to try to help Americans vote safely during this pandemic by expanding vote-by-mail. And at the same time, Trump and his cronies are working to dismantle the U.S. Postal Service, slowing down mail delivery and creating even more barriers to the ballot at a critical moment in this election.

We have all seen the President's reckless, dangerous statements over the past few months casting down on the election itself, peddling the fact-free claim that this election will be ``the most rigged'' in American history and that he is ``not sure'' that the election results will be accurate.

Most alarming of all, Trump has repeatedly refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, and he said that he would not accept the election results if he doesn't win

And as her confirmation hearing shows, Barrett is just the Justice Donald Trump is looking for. In her hearing, Barrett refused to recuse herself in a case that might decide the outcome of the election, and she refused to say whether she believes that a President should commit to the peaceful transfer of power.

She also refused to say whether voter intimidation is illegal, which it is; whether the President can unilaterally delay an election, which he cannot; and whether the Constitution empowers Congress to protect the right to vote, which it does.

The stakes have never been higher for our democracy. On one issue after another, on one right after another, Trump and his Republican enablers have made it clear that they want a Court that will bend over backward even further for the wealthy and well-connected while running roughshod over everyone else. They want a Court that will keep them in power, even when voters have had enough of their fearmongering and division and graft, and Barrett is their choice to do just that. That is why this vote is so critical.

A vote for Barrett is a vote to strip healthcare from millions of people. It is a vote to turn back the clock on reproductive freedom, to endanger Dreamers and immigrants, to let climate change rampage unchecked, to imperil efforts to address systemic racism, to support workers' rights, voting rights, LGBTQ rights, gun violence prevention-- all at risk.

Ultimately, it is also a vote to rubberstamp an illegitimate process carried out against the wishes of much of the Nation and against the backdrop of a deadly crisis that Senate Republicans have ignored as Americans have died.

Let's be very clear: If Trump and Republicans succeed in ramming this nomination through, the American people will expect us to use every tool we have to undo the damage and restore the Court's integrity.

I am under no illusions here. Democrats have fought tooth and nail, but the Republicans control the Senate. The reason the Republicans are willing to break every rule to jam through an illegitimate nomination 8 days before the election is that they have realized a truth that shakes them down to their core: The American people are not on their side.

People all over this country are fighting to reclaim our democracy. They are registering to vote, and they are voting. They are voting like never before. They are speaking out and telling their stories. They are fighting for a democracy that works for all of us, not just for the privileged few. And they will continue to fight until they have taken our democracy back from those who have worked around the clock to undermine it.

Now, I want to spend some time drilling down on what is at stake with this vote, starting with the impact that dismantling the Affordable Care Act will have on my constituents in Massachusetts.

I will start with an op-ed that I wrote with Amy Rosenthal, the executive director of Health Care for All, and Kate Walsh. She is the president and CEO of Boston Medical Center. It was published in the Boston Globe, and it was entitled ``The Affordable Care Act and coverage for Massachusetts residents is at risk.''

Here is what we wrote:

Dave was laid off from his hotel job in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, and he lost his health insurance too. A week later, he was rushed to the emergency room with a lung problem. With support from an enrollment assister, he was able to enroll in MassHealth coverage that was made possible because of the Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare. He is just one of the hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents given a lifeline by the ACA.

Yet, the multi-year effort to repeal the law is coming to a head at the worst possible time. Just days after the November election, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case seeking to overturn the ACA. And Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett has a clear record on the issue. She has openly questioned the constitutionality of the ACA, arguing the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the ACA's individual mandate was ``illegitimate.'' If she is confirmed to the court, she may provide the decisive vote to strike it down. For people like Dave, and more than 23 million others nationwide, access to health care hangs in the balance.

The need for health care coverage has never been more dire than during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has laid bare devastating racial disparities in health care access and outcomes. The ACA coverage expansions led to progress toward equity, with the gap with insurance coverage rate for Black and white adults dropping by 4 percentage points and the difference between Hispanic and white adults falling by 9.4 points. Instead of building on these important steps, overturning the ACA would further exacerbate inequities in access to health care.

The elimination of the ACA would also be devastating for people with specific health care needs, including 1.8 million people living with substance use disorders and mental illness. Protections would also be stripped away from 135 million people who have preexisting conditions like diabetes, cancer, asthma, and those now who have had COVID-19. Insurance companies could once again charge women 50 percent more than men for coverage and impose lifetime caps on benefits. It would strip a popular feature for families: coverage for those up to age 26 who have sought coverage on their parents' plans at a time when youth unemployment has doubled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Massachusetts, where our state's health reform law served as a model for the ACA, many falsely believe we would be protected if the ACA were struck down. This is not the case. Thanks to the ACA, a number of new protections were implemented in the Commonwealth: the provision allowing young people to stay on their parents' plan and the reduction of prescription drug costs for seniors caught in the Medicare ``donut-hole.'' These protections could be gone overnight if the ACA were invalidated.

In addition, an ACA repeal would impact access to health coverage and healthcare for hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts consumers. The state's health insurance coverage expansions were only possible with the partnership and funding from the federal government. This is especially true for the expansion of MassHealth, our Medicaid program, as well as the availability of affordable coverage through ConnectorCare. Over 375,000 Massachusetts residents could lose their health coverage and the state stands to lose up to $2.4 billion in federal funds. These immense cuts would create a funding gap that would be impossible to fill even during normal times. The challenge is even greater now: According to some estimates, Massachusetts may face a deficit of up to $6 billion as a result of the pandemic. These funding shortfalls could have devastating implications for the health care safety net in Massachusetts.

Taking coverage away from people during the worst pandemic we have experienced in the last century is simply despicable, and we should all be outraged. Massachusetts deserves more from its President and from its government. All of us must speak up, speak out, and make it abundantly clear that the ACA cannot be repealed.

Speaking up includes speaking up about how the ACA has transformed people's lives. So many folks in Massachusetts reached out to my office to share their stories and how they would be harmed if healthcare were ripped away, so I want to introduce you to a few of those people: Marleny, Deb, and Charlie.

Marleny is a single mom from Framingham. She receives her healthcare through ConnectorCare, the plans we have in Massachusetts for low- income families who don't qualify for any other program. Her children use MassHealth Family Assistance, which is our CHIP program.

She says that, without the help she gets from MassHealth and from ConnectorCare, she couldn't pay her rent and bring food to the table for her kids.

You know, the Affordable Care Act helped Massachusetts expand Medicaid and more affordable insurance plans like the ones Marleny uses. But if Trump's Supreme Court nominee overturns the ACA, Massachusetts could lose $2.4 billion in Federal funding. Over 375,000 people like Marleny and her children could lose their coverage.

Deb from Greenfield knows what it is like not to be able to pay for healthcare. She told me: ``I was an American whom ObamaCare saved at the very moment I lost my career and my health.'' She writes: ``You must step in and take action. We cannot sit idly by while our access to affordable healthcare hangs in the balance.''

Deb is right, and there are millions of people across this country who have lost their jobs during this pandemic and economic crisis and could be in the exact same position that Deb was in.

And, finally, I checked back in with my friend Charlie and her mom, Rebecca, who live in Revere. Charlie and I fought side by side at the Capitol during the healthcare fights in 2017.

Her mom reminded me: ``Due to severe preeclampsia, Charlie was delivered at 26 weeks gestation and weighed 790 [grams]--about 1 pound 12 ounces. She was in the NICU for 3 months. Without the ACA, she would have exceeded a lifetime cap before ever coming home from the hospital. Additionally, she would have been uninsurable because her birth was a preexisting condition. With access to health care, Charlie was able to thrive despite some pretty significant diagnoses. Now, at the age of 8, Charlie lives a very much typical life.''

Repealing the Affordable Care Act now would be devastating for Rebecca and Charlie. They can't go back to lifetime caps or sky-high rates and denied coverage because of preexisting conditions. None of these families can.

And, like so many policies, Black and Brown communities will be disproportionately affected if the ACA is destroyed.

I want to read another op-ed I wrote recently that was published in Shondaland. It discusses the harm of stripping away healthcare for communities of color, and here is what it says:

Over ten years ago, President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law. Since then, we've made progress. Millions of Americans now have high-quality, affordable health insurance. We no longer have to worry about being denied coverage because of preexisting conditions. Millions of young adults can stay on their parents' plans until age 26. States were given the option to expand Medicaid eligibility--providing coverage to more than 12 million low-income Americans.

But now, the ACA is at risk because Republicans are trying to ram through Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to serve as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. They are trying to push her confirmation through at breakneck speed because just one week after the November elections, a case to overturn the ACA will be in front of the Supreme Court, and Republicans want Barrett to have their back, cast the deciding vote, and deliver a deathblow to the law.

Republicans have railed against the ACA from the day it was passed, making its repeal a tenet of their platform in every presidential and congressional race. They've tried dozens and dozens of times to tear it down piece by piece--all while ignoring the plethora of data that demonstrates the good it has done for the American people. Among the chorus of ACA detractors is Judge Barrett. While she tried to claim during her Supreme Court hearing that she is ``not hostile to the ACA,'' her record says otherwise. She criticized Chief Justice Roberts' vote in 2012 to uphold the ACA and wrote reviews questioning the law's constitutionality. Her nomination is just the latest Republican attack on the ACA--and if she is confirmed, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump might get their wish and succeed in ripping healthcare away from tens of millions of people during a global pandemic.

Here's what that would mean: In the middle of the Covid-19 crisis, insurance companies would instantly be able to enforce caps on coverage or deny coverage to the 133 million Americans with preexisting conditions like asthma, diabetes, and even pregnancy. Covid-19 itself could be considered a preexisting condition for the millions of Americans who have survived the virus. The 12 million low-income Americans now covered by Medicaid expansions would lose their coverage, including more than 850,000 Americans struggling with opioid use disorder, [people who] rely on Medicaid for life-saving medication assisted treatment and counseling services. Millions of young adults would be thrown off of their parents' insurance, forcing them to pay out of their own pockets even as many struggle under a mountain of student loan debt, stagnant wages, and high unemployment rates due to the pandemic.

And the damage won't stop there. Repeal of the ACA would have devastating consequences for Black and brown communities that disproportionately benefit from its coverage. The ACA helped narrow disparities in access to healthcare in the United States and provided millions of Black and brown families affordable options for care. Without the ACA, one in every five Black Americans, and one in three Hispanic Americans would be uninsured. If the ACA is dismantled, Black and brown communities that benefit from Medicaid expansions would be kicked off their insurance. In the midst of a maternal mortality crisis that disproportionately impacts mothers of color, moms across this country could lose access to the well woman visits and the maternity coverage currently required by the ACA.

So let's call out the Supreme Court nomination for what it is--Donald Trump and the entire Republican Party's big chance to complete a decade-long partisan attack on the ACA and on Americans' rights to health care. It's the big chance for a desperate party to impose its extreme views on the people of this country because they couldn't actually get it done through Congress.

The majority of Americans want the Senate to wait until after the election to choose a new justice. It's because this is a life or death situation for their friends, their families, and for tens of millions of their fellow Americans.

In 2012, after yet another attack on the ACA was defeated in the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg wrote that ``the crisis created by the large number of U.S. residents who lack health insurance is one of national dimension'' and cited the ``inevitable yet unpredictable need for medical care'' as a reason to uphold the legislation. [Justice Ginsburg] was right. Health care is a basic human right. We fight for basic human rights. We fight against this nomination. And we fight any attempt to rip away healthcare from families. We do this together.

It is not just healthcare for tens of millions of people that is on the line. A woman's right to make her own healthcare decisions is also in jeopardy. Roe v. Wade is a landmark case that protects a woman's right to abortion care. A few weeks ago, I published an op-ed in The Cut that discusses what this nomination means for the right to abortion care, and I want to read it now for you. This is what I wrote:

The decision whether or not to bear a child ``is central to a woman's life, to her dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.''

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that 30 years ago, at her Supreme Court confirmation hearing. She understood that reproductive freedom is foundational to equality and critical to women's health and to their economic security. Without access to high-quality reproductive healthcare--including contraception and safe, legal abortion--we cannot have true equality.

But President Trump, Senate Republicans, and their extremist allies just don't care. They've spent almost 4 years of the Trump administration--and . . . many years before [that]--undermining health care and turning back the clock on reproductive rights. That's why they nominated Amy Coney Barrett to sit on the Supreme Court. She's the ticket for a desperate, right-wing party that wants to hold onto power a little longer in order to impose its extremist agenda on the entire country.

President Trump and his Republican enablers have tried to deny this obvious fact. The President recently said that he ``didn't know'' how Barrett would rule on reproductive rights, and Republicans in the Senate have fallen in line. The Republican Party knows the large majority of Americans do not support overturning Roe v. Wade. They benefit when we stay on the sidelines--and they want us to sit back and stay quiet while our fundamental freedoms are on the line.

But we see right through their radical play.

President Trump picked Barrett as his Supreme Court nominee to take us back in time. Roe v. Wade established the constitutional right to safe and legal abortion and has been the law of the land for over 47 years. But over, and over, and over again, President Trump has bragged about his plans to appoint justices who would ``automatically'' overturn Roe. The Affordable Care Act expanded access to reproductive health care--like no-co-pay birth control--for millions [of people]. But President Trump has promised to overturn the Affordable Care Act in its entirety, and sent his Justice Department to ask the Supreme Court to do exactly that.

Barrett is Trump's ideal candidate to accomplish his plans. In 2006, she signed a newspaper ad calling for the end of Roe and describing the decision as ``barbaric.'' She was a member of an anti-choice group while on the University of Notre Dame faculty. She's also been critical of the Affordable Care Act and the Supreme Court's past decision to uphold the law in court. Her position on abortion and other reproductive rights are clear: She believes women cannot be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies.

If Barrett's nomination makes you scared and angry, you are right to be: 17 abortion-related cases are already one step away from the Supreme Court. Twenty-one States have laws that could be used to restrict abortion in the case that Roe is overturned. And if Barrett's confirmation is rammed through quickly, she'll have the opportunity--on November 10--to hear a case about overturning the Affordable Care Act and a lifetime on the nation's highest court to undermine the rights and the values we hold dear.

Access to birth control has changed the economic futures of millions of women, and access to safe abortion care is an economic issue, too. For a young couple with modest wages and piles of student loan debt, the decision to start or expand a family is a powerful economic [one]. For a woman working two jobs with two kids already in day care, an unplanned pregnancy can upend budgets already stretched too far. For a student still in high school or working toward a college degree, it can derail the most careful plans for financial independence. Indeed, one of the most common reasons that women decide to have an abortion is because they cannot afford to raise a child.

And let's be explicitly clear: If these attacks succeed, they will have disproportionately negative consequences for women of color who are already facing some of the most insurmountable barriers to abortion care.

Rich women will still have access to abortion and reproductive care, but it will be Black and Brown women--women with low incomes, women who can't afford to take time off from work, and young women who were raped or molested by a family member--who will be the most vulnerable.

This is not a moment to back down. Already, it is inspiring to see so many women and friends of women coming off the sidelines in this fight, and we must continue to speak up. Call your Senators and make sure this conversation is grounded in our real experiences. Men must speak up, too, because reproductive freedom affects us all.

Voting is already underway across the country, and there are only 26 days before the election is completed. And the data shows that most Americans want to wait until after the election for a new Justice to be confirmed. Justice Ginsburg gave us our marching orders: Do not fill this Supreme Court seat until after the election when the next President is installed. We will fight hard together to honor her wish.

There are countless powerful stories that demonstrate why abortion rights are so important. I am going to read a few of them. The first is from my friend and colleague from Michigan, Senator Peters, who became the first sitting U.S. Senator to share his abortion story. I will just read an excerpt of that powerful piece that was published in Elle magazine.

In the late 1980s in Detroit, Peters and his then wife, Heidi, were pregnant with their second child, a baby they very much wanted. Heidi was four months along when her water broke, leaving the fetus without amniotic fluid--a condition it could not possibly survive. The doctor told the Peters to go home and wait for a miscarriage to happen naturally.

But it didn't happen. They went back to the hospital the next day, and the doctor detected a faint heartbeat. He recommended an abortion because the fetus still had no chance of survival, but it wasn't an option due to a hospital policy banning the procedure. So he sent the couple home again to wait for a miscarriage. ``The mental anguish someone goes through is intense,'' Peters says, ``trying to have a miscarriage for a child that was wanted.''

As they waited, Heidi's health deteriorated. When she returned to the hospital on the third day, after another night without a natural miscarriage, the doctor told her the situation was dire. She could lose her uterus in a matter of hours if she wasn't able to have an abortion, and if she became septic from the uterine infection, she could die.

The doctor appealed to the hospital's board for an exception to their anti-abortion policy and was denied. ``I still vividly remember he left a message on the answering machine saying, `They refused to give me permission, not based on good medical practice, simply based on politics. I recommend you immediately find another physician who can do this procedure quickly,' '' Peters recalls.

The Peters were able to get into another hospital right away because they were friends with its chief administrator. Heidi was rushed into an emergency abortion that saved her uterus and possibly her life. The whole experience was ``painful and traumatic,'' Heidi shared in a statement. ``If it weren't for urgent and critical medical care, I could have lost my life.''

Reflecting on the experience now, Senator Peters says it ``enacted an incredible emotional toll.'' So why go public with it? ``Well, it's important for folks to understand that these things happen to folks every day,'' he explains. ``I've always considered myself pro-choice and believe women should be able to make these decisions themselves, but when you live it in real life, you realize the significant impact it can have on a family.''

Peters decided to share his story at this moment because the right to make such decisions as a family, free of politics, has never been more at stake. He is alarmed by the threat of Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett--the threat she poses to women's reproductive rights. The very conservative nominee once signed her name onto a newspaper ad calling Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion, ``barbaric.'' If Republicans successfully confirm her to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat, she could reverse legal abortion in America or significantly curtail it. ``It's important for folks who are willing to tell these stories to tell them, especially now,'' Peters says. ``The new Supreme Court nominee could make a decision that will have major ramifications for reproductive health for women for decades to come. This is a pivotal moment for reproductive freedom.''

Senator Peters is right: This is a pivotal moment for reproductive freedom. I have heard from so many of my constituents about the importance of Roe and reproductive freedom. I am just going to share two of their stories.

The first is from Kate, who lives in Medford, MA. Here is what Kate wrote:

Most of my life, my strong support for abortion was as impersonal as it was important. A late bloomer, I barely dated until I was in my 20s, then quickly met and married my wonderful husband. Our birth control always worked perfectly. Anyway, we are both family-minded, and dreamed of building our family big with lots of kids.

My husband and I had one daughter, planned and loved. But the second child was not so easy. I suffered three miscarriages in two years before a baby finally stuck. Pregnancy brought months of crushing nausea. But the sicker I felt the better, the doctors said, things must be going [well]. Healthy, healthy, healthy, they told me, time after time.

By late may, the end was in sight. Big and ripe and swollen, I bundled myself into the hospital for an ultrasound. I brought a tiny sweater to knit while I waited. After an hour of examination, a doctor entered the dark room. She saw the sweater and asked, ``Is it for the baby?'' I nodded proudly and showed her how all the pieces would line up, just so, to fit my newborn daughter. A month was plenty long to finish such a small project. ``It's beautiful''. She told me, her eyes filling with tears.

Then she turned the monitor toward me so that I could see the big, black fluid-filled holes in my baby's brain.

There was so little that I knew that day. I didn't know about Dandy Walker Malformation or Agenesis of the corpus callosum. I knew love. I knew fear. I knew my values. And I knew that I was in Boston, medical mecca, hub of the universe.

I learned more about brains in general and my baby's brain in particular. MRI revealed poor prognosis. My daughter would not likely ever walk, talk, support the weight of her own head, or swallow. I learned that infant hospice was out of the question, and that I could not refuse a feeding tube for my baby.

Dumbfounded, I asked the neurologist, ``What does a baby like mine do? Just . . . sleep all day?'' He winced. ``Babies like yours,'' he explained, ``are not often comfortable enough to sleep.'' I knew what I needed to do. 35 weeks pregnant, and I was afraid, even, to tell my husband, my mother, my doctor, my genetic counselor, but I talked to my family, and I called the hospital. It was a Friday afternoon. My doctor was busy delivering triplets. I left a message. ``I want to know all my options,'' I said. ``All of them.''

She called me back at 6:30 p.m. and talked fast. She gave me the number of an adoption agency in upstate New York that specializes in medically complex children.

``I'm so sorry,'' she said. ``But if you want an abortion, you have to decide right away. You have to call before the end of the work day, mountain time. You have to be on an airplane on Monday, you have to show up Tuesday with $25,000 up front. I'm so sorry,'' she said again. I did not have $25,000. I didn't know if the number led to a safe, legal doctor, or if it led to some back-alley quack. I knew only my desperation. I called the number right away. The woman on the phone was very kind. She, too, apologized. ``But Dr. Hern does not practice after 36 weeks, and you'll be 36 weeks on the last day of your procedure.'' ``Yes,'' of course, I said. ``Of course. I understand. We'll be there. We'll find the money.''

And we did. There wasn't one day of open banking before our trip, so a loan was out of the question. We had to rely on my family. They were able to increase their credit while we flew across the country and withdraw funds from their retirement account to cover the bill later in the month. Without them, I don't know what would have happened. I know, now, about the abortion funds. But just as I didn't risk asking if what I was doing was safe and legal, I didn't want to ask for financial help. Everything felt so fragile.

I met Dr. Hern and his excellent team with great relief. They explained the procedure. My third trimester abortion was humane, gentle, safe--safer, even in the 36th week, than full term live birth. We laid my daughter to rest in my womb that first day, a Tuesday. Friday morning, after brief labor, I delivered her whole and still, into the hands of my savior. He brought her to me after. She was still warm, but not quite warm enough.

Dr. Hern saved my daughter from immeasurable suffering. He saved my family from having to go against our deepest held values. Dr. Hern saved me from my own desperation. And every step of the way, he saved my dignity.

I want to share one more story. This one is from Wendy in Greenfield, MA. I will just read a part of what Wendy wrote. She said:

I know firsthand that overturning Roe--whether overtly or by chipping away at access to abortion until Roe becomes meaningless--will not stop women from seeking abortions. It will, however, deny women access to safe abortions. Abortion has been with us since women have been getting pregnant, and will continue to be with us no matter what the politicians and judges decide. In 1961, I was 17 and abortion was not yet legal, but I was pregnant and did not want to be. I was fortunate because I was able to tell my parents, and they helped me find a doctor--but finding a safe, compassionate doctor turned out to be a different story.

We knew an illegal abortion could be expensive and my parents didn't have much money, so we made a plan together that I would go by myself in the hopes that he would take mercy on me and charge me less.

I know there were many heroic doctors who helped women back then at great risk to themselves, but this doctor, who I'm sure had seen other young women who were alone and without support, thought he could take advantage instead. I remember finding the somewhat rundown building and walking up a dark flight of stairs to his office. There was nobody else there, just the two of us, the office was untidy and dimly lit with the window blinds down. And the doctor himself appeared unkempt and unprofessional. His clothes were rumpled, he sat too close to me and put his hand on my knee and said ``we don't have to use the word abortion, dear.'

I knew immediately that I did not want this man to touch me, let alone perform an abortion, so I did what many young women in my situation back then weren't able to do: I walked out. I went back down that flight of stairs and out into the light of the street. I felt--and still feel--it was a narrow escape.

So we found a second doctor--and in fact this time it was my younger sister who had a guitar teacher who knew someone, because that's how it worked back then--and this time my mother came with me. We had to go at night to the back door, and though there was no nurse or assistant, this office was clean and it looked like a real medical office, and the doctor looked like a real doctor. But he was not a compassionate man. As I lay there on the exam table with my mother in the next room, the doctor lectured me the whole time, telling me I was a sinner, that the abortion was the ``wages of sin,'' that he hoped I would learn my lesson, and he threatened that if I made any noise, he would stop the procedure, I would have to have the baby, and everyone would ``know my shame.''

Although my experience was scary and humiliating, my story is not as horrific as many from that time--I survived, without injury, as many women did not--but that's because I was lucky. I was lucky to have supportive parents, I was lucky they could afford to pay, I was lucky to have a precocious sister, and I was lucky her guitar teacher had contacts, and lucky he knew of a medically competent doctor. But nobody should have to depend on luck to get a safe abortion.

Although that doctor tried to shame me, I am not ashamed. I don't think abortion is shameful and I have never had a moment's regret. My abortion allowed me to live the life I wanted and to become a parent when I was able to raise a child properly and responsibly. This was good for me and my life, but it is also a social and public health good. Abortion is a necessary part of family planning and women's healthcare and denying or restricting access to it means that women can not safely control their reproduction and therefore can't really control their lives, which means they can't participate fully and equally in society. It is bad social policy to hobble half of the population.

Women of my generation already know what pain and hardship results from abortion bans, but younger women have grown up taking abortion access for granted as a right, and I urge them to speak out and tell their stories. And not only women, but men, and other family members and friends who have been involved and who have been affected. Bring up your experiences in conversation, contact your legislators and tell them. They are the ones in immediate danger and whose lives and whose families' lives will be affected.

Senator Peters' story, Kate's story, Wendy's story are just about how gut-wrenching these decisions are. These are personal decisions that women should make for themselves.

The Senate has no business taking up a vote on a Supreme Court Justice who is already committed to taking away healthcare from millions of people and to take away Roe v. Wade and this protection from millions of women.

We may not have the votes to stop them, but that does not change the fact that what the Senate Republicans are doing is wrong. We will continue to fight it. We will fight it now in the Senate, and we will fight it come election day November 3.

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