Abortion

Floor Speech

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Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the case that will come before our Nation's highest Court on December 1, is truly a historic case. It is about a law the State of Mississippi passed in 2018 to ban almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

When I was a member of the State legislature in Nebraska in 2010, we passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Nebraska's bill banned most abortions after 20 weeks, the point when science at that time told us that unborn babies start to be able to feel pain. We were the first State in the country to pass a law of this kind, and in our Nebraska unicameral, we passed it with 44 ``yes'' votes and just 5 ``no'' votes.

Nebraska has a unicameral--1 House, 49 Senators. We have pro-choice, pro-life, Republicans and Democrats that voted for this bill. We had pro-choice Republicans. We had a number of pro-life Democrats. In fact, we had a former Democratic National Committeeman vote for this bill. All we cared about was protecting the most vulnerable people in our society--unborn children.

I was proud to support Nebraska's bill. I was proud that pro-life Democrats, pro-choice Republicans, put their differences aside to vote for it. And I am proud today to stand with Mississippi as their law comes before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Back in July, I joined more than 200 of my colleagues in the Senate and the House of Representatives in filing an amicus brief supporting Mississippi's bill. In our brief, we argued that the precedence the Supreme Court set in Roe v. Wade and a later case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, are outdated. When Roe was decided nearly 50 years ago, babies born before 28 weeks were not expected to survive. Today, the miracles of modern medicine have allowed babies born much earlier to not only survive but to go on to live full and happy lives.

Just last year, a little boy was born right next door to Mississippi, in Alabama, at 21 weeks. He was 132 days premature, and he weighed just 14.8 ounces. Fifty years ago, it would have been unthinkable-- unthinkable--for him to live beyond a few days. But this July, he celebrated his first birthday.

Fifty years ago, ultrasounds and sonograms were not widely available. Today, they are an essential part of prenatal care. The pictures that these technologies enable families to see of their unborn children, even at the early stages of pregnancy, are often nearly identical to the newborns they will soon become. The advancements of the last 50 years have left no doubt about the humanity of the unborn. And as science continues to progress over the next 50 years, new developments are going to keep allowing babies born earlier and earlier to survive and to thrive.

The laws of just about every developed country have kept up with this rapid progress, but here in the United States our laws are stuck in the past. The United States is one of only four nations on Earth where certain States allow abortions up to the day of birth. That puts us in the uncomfortable company of China, North Korea, and Vietnam. Ninety percent of countries around the world limit abortion at 15 weeks, the same point as Mississippi's law, and some even earlier. In Europe alone, there are eight countries with laws that are stricter than Mississippi's. That includes Germany, where abortion is illegal in most cases just after 12 weeks. Women seeking abortions before 12 weeks in Germany also have to go through a 3-day waiting period and a mandatory counseling session.

Mississippi's law isn't that different from Germany's. In some ways, it is even more lenient, but it is still being challenged in our court system based on legal decisions from decades ago.

Our laws are outdated, and America's unborn children are paying the price. Since 1973, more than 60 million abortions have taken the lives of more than 60 million American children, many of whom could have survived outside the womb.

It is past time for the United States to move into the 21st century. The Supreme Court has a chance to help us do that by upholding Mississippi's law in the Dobbs case, and I hope they will.

With that, I would yield to my colleague from Kansas, Senator Marshall, who is also a doctor, a gynecologist, and obstetrician.

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