Women's Health Protection Act of 2021
Floor Speech
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Mrs. FLETCHER. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the Women's Health Protection Act. As an original cosponsor of the bill, I thank Representative Chu for her leadership on this important bill.
As a woman from Texas, I thank this body for responding with urgency to my beloved home State's cruel law, depriving Texans of their constitutional rights, by bringing this bill to the floor today.
In this moment, it is a Texas law, a law quickly being copied across the country, that has brought us here. But let us remember that it was also Texas that brought us the framework for this bill that we will pass today to protect the health, privacy, dignity, and freedom of women and families across this country in the case of Roe v. Wade. It was a 26-year-old Texas woman named Sarah Weddington who took that case all the way to the Supreme Court.
Texas women have fought and will continue to fight for the rights that we protect here today. I am proud to be one of them and to vote in favor of this bill.
Madam Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from NARAL Pro-Choice America. Statement of NARAL Pro-Choice America The Women's Health Protection Act (H.R. 3755)--september 24, 2021
Thank you for the opportunity to submit a statement to the U.S. House of Representatives on this critical legislation. NARAL Pro-Choice America (NARAL) is a national advocacy organization, dedicated to protecting and advancing reproductive freedom, including access to abortion, contraception, paid leave, and protection from pregnancy discrimination, as a fundamental right and value. Through education, organizing, and influencing public policy, NARAL and our 2.5 million members from every state and congressional district in the country work to guarantee every individual the freedom to make personal decisions about their lives, bodies, and futures, free from political interference. For this reason, we are submitting this statement to thank leadership for holding this vote and to call on Congress to pass the Women's Health Protection Act in order to safeguard the federal right to abortion against bans and medically unnecessary restrictions.
The legal right to abortion faces its greatest threat in decades. Despite overwhelming public support, 8 in 10 Americans, for the legal right to abortion, we're in the midst of an all-out assault on reproductive freedom with Roe v. Wade hanging in the balance. The need to enshrine the legal right to abortion in federal statute is more urgent than ever. The fact that the U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, and that it declined to block Texas's extreme abortion ban, allowing Roe to be rendered meaningless in the state, represent ominous signs for the future of abortion rights in this country.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court failed to intervene and subsequently rejected an emergency request to block Texas Senate Bill 8 (SB 8), a blatantly unconstitutional ban on abortion. This law bans abortion at approximately six weeks before many people even know they are pregnant. It also grants private citizens the power to sue abortion providers and anyone else who helps someone access abortion care; this includes clergy members or counselors, abortion funds that assist someone in paying for abortion care, and even someone who drives a patient to their appointment, like family members, friends, and rideshare drivers. An individual who successfully sues someone for assisting a pregnant person seeking abortion care would receive a financial reward of $10,000. The Supreme Court's decision to allow SB 8 to go into effect essentially gave Texas the green light to render Roe v. Wade meaningless in the state and empowered anti- choice lawmakers to use this law as a blueprint to roll back reproductive freedom in their own states.
The pending Supreme Court case is set against a backdrop of increasingly cruel and draconian restrictions and bans as anti-choice politicians escalate their quest to end legal abortion.
Even as Roe stands, though it has long not been a reality for many, the further evisceration of abortion access is ramping up. In addition to Texas's ban, state lawmakers seeking to advance their agenda of power and control have passed hundreds of state-level attacks on abortion access over the last decade that have made care extremely difficult, if not impossible, to access for many people across the country. Systematic attacks on reproductive freedom and abortion access, including bans on abortion coverage, intentionally push access out of reach and have rendered meaningless the protections and rights afforded by Roe v. Wade for many people across the country.
The unprecedented threat to the right to abortion underscores the urgent need for Congress to pass the Women's Health Protection Act. Every day without congressional action to protect abortion rights and expand abortion access means that more and more people are denied the right to abortion and ability to access the care that they need--and we know that this disproportionately affects women, Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), people working to make ends meet, immigrants, young people, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and those living in rural and other medically underserved areas. Attacks on abortion rights and access are rooted in racism, white supremacy, and other forms of discrimination. Ending these barriers and ensuring equal access to abortion care is central to the pursuit of reproductive freedom and racial and economic justice.
The looming threat to the future of legal abortion across the country is the result of a decades-long far-right strategy to advance a radical and out-of-touch ideological agenda. In the late 1970s, radical conservatives weaponized the formerly non-political, back-burner issue of abortion rights as political cover for their efforts to maintain white patriarchal control amidst diminishing support for racist policies like school segregation, which had previously been the backbone of their movement. In the years immediately preceding and following Roe v. Wade, Evangelical Christians, who now form the backbone of the GOP, were overwhelmingly indifferent on the issue of abortion. But through the carefully crafted messages of Paul Weyrich, Jerry Falwell, and other architects of the Radical Right, abortion became the political tool of choice for a movement determined to maintain control in a changing world, and the trojan horse for a far-reaching array of ideologies meant to thwart social progress.
In the intervening years, opposition to abortion has become a litmus test in far-right circles for a host of political and judicial positions. In order to advance their agenda--one that has always stood in direct opposition to the values of the majority of Americans--they developed and implemented a strategy for capturing and maintaining minority rule. This strategy included pushing regressive boilerplate legislation chipping away at access to abortion through state legislatures and Congress, as well as stacking the federal judiciary with anti-choice ideologues.
Anti-choice activists have spent decades building their influence over the federal judiciary through well-funded, secretive networks like the Federalist Society. Conservative activists have never been shy about the fact that their takeover of the federal judiciary is part of a broad strategy to quell the majority and cement minority rule, but the election of Donald Trump took this tactic to new heights. In May 2016, Trump pledged to only nominate anti-choice judges, a promise he doubled down on in 2020. And with the help of Mitch McConnell, Trump installed anti-choice federal judges with lifetime appointments at a breakneck pace. More than a quarter of currently active federal judges are now Trump appointees, including Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett--tipping the balance of the Court to a supermajority unmistakably hostile to reproductive freedom. We have already seen this majority use the so-called ``shadow docket'' to undermine the right to abortion and abortion access. There is no denying that the threat to Roe v. Wade is real.
Anti-choice lawmakers, emboldened by the anti-choice supermajority on the Court, have accelerated their push to pass blatantly unconstitutional bans and restrictions on abortion--introducing, advancing, or passing over 330 bills attacking abortion access this year alone, some going as far as criminalizing pregnant people and doctors who provide abortion care. Now, more than ever, the anti-choice movement is advancing its extremist agenda in plain sight. Already this year, at least eight states have enacted laws that criminalize doctors for providing abortion care. When abortion care is criminalized, lives are on the line. Ending legal abortion would roll back the clock for our rights, but it would not eliminate abortion. It would only isolate and endanger people trying to make the best decisions for their lives and their futures.
The interrogation and punishment of people who are pregnant is not far-fetched--it is already happening. People across the country are already being charged or prosecuted for pregnancy outcomes including pregnancy loss, self-managing abortion care, or even the suspicion of it. Criminalizing people for having an abortion, experiencing a miscarriage or stillbirth, or any other pregnancy outcome only exacerbates racial inequities and is just one of the many ways that Black, Indigenous, and other people of color have been criminalized.
NARAL Pro-Choice America strongly supports the Women's Health Protection Act, which was re-introduced this year by Representatives Judy Chu (D-CA), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Veronica Escobar (D-TX), and Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). Roe v. Wade and access to abortion care are on the line like never before and this moment requires urgent action from Congress. All people--no matter who they are or where they live--should have the freedom to make their own decisions about whether to start or grow a family, free from political interference. Enacting the Women's Health Protect Act is a critical step toward creating a world where every body is free to make the best decisions for themselves, their families, and their lives.
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