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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last week, Americans woke up to the news that was perhaps not unexpected but still stunning.

It appears that in a matter of weeks, we may soon live in a country where women have fewer constitutional rights than their parents or grandparents.

In one bold move, the ultraconservative, activist majority on the Supreme Court appears poised to erase the constitutional right to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term.

I want to be clear: The leak of the majority draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization is an unprecedented breach of the Court's confidential deliberations. It may harm the trust the Justices have with one another, as well as the public's trust in the Court.

Still, one must wonder, Why is it that our Republican colleagues have been focused so exclusively on the leak of the draft opinion rather than the substance of the opinion itself? And why do we hear in the last few days a continued reference to the security of Supreme Court Justices without a real discussion of where the proposed opinion will take us?

Let's make it clear--unequivocally clear--in a bipartisan fashion: Violence is never acceptable. Violence is never acceptable against Supreme Court Justices, their families, their staff, or anyone associated with that branch of government.

Nor is violence acceptable on January 6, 2021, in this Chamber, when the mob--the insurrectionist mob--leaving a Trump rally came here and tried to stop the business of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, and we left as fast as we could move out the back door to try to escape that. That was violence which led to five deaths and the assaults on 150 members of law enforcement. That violence is unacceptable as well, and I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle, who vetoed an effort for a bipartisan commission to investigate the violence of January 6, will step up now and say they were wrong.

Violence against a Supreme Court Justice, violence against a Member of the House, and a Member of the Senate--none of those is acceptable, period. Unequivocally. Period.

I am in favor of protecting the Justices, of course. I have been party to efforts in my home State of Illinois, after a tragic incident over 10 years ago, when a disgruntled client ended up killing a Federal judge's mother and husband in their home.

Since then, I have called for more security, and I am glad to add my name to this effort now to provide security to this Court and all the members of the Court, their families, and the staff who are involved.

It is unacceptable. Violence, either in this building or across the street, is unacceptable.

But I would like to speak as well to the substance of the statement just made by the Senator from Texas.

He recalled the case of Kermit Gosnell, a case where a doctor in Philadelphia was convicted, virtually of infanticide--repeated cases of infanticide--and he was sentenced, ultimately, to life in prison, where he still spends his time serving that out, with no chance of parole, nor should he ever have a chance at parole.

I struggle to get the connection between the crime of infanticide and the debate we are having, because there is nothing in the bill coming to the floor by the Democrats which is going to change that basic finding in the case in Pennsylvania.

That doctor, now removed from his profession and serving time in Federal prison, was guilty of a crime, and the bill before us on the floor of the Senate will not change that reality at all. I don't know if that was the inference, but I took it to mean that. I hope I was wrong.

We need to acknowledge the basics that a critical constitutional right may be removed by the Supreme Court.

I am an amateur historian studying the history of this country. I can't think of another time when a constitutionally guaranteed right by Supreme Court opinion of over 50 years has been removed by the Court. But that is what we face now--on the right of Americans to make the most basic decisions about their health, their lives, and their future.

Sadly, many Republicans are desperately trying to deflect from this ruling and what it means for every single American.

If the legal reason in the Court's draft opinion becomes final, that decision in Dobbs will end a half-century guarantee that the right to abortion is protected in our Constitution.

Republicans know that overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating access to a woman's healthcare is extremely unpopular.

When asked point-blank whether we should do it, only 28 percent of Americans say that they agree.

In a world without Roe, Americans would not only be denied healthcare services they are entitled to, it is possible--it is possible--that some will be prosecuted.

Far-right lawmakers have been feverishly anticipating this moment. Over the past week, some of these same officials have introduced legislation around the country designed to punish women for making the basic decisions about reproductive health.

State legislators in Louisiana introduced a bill to allow prosecutors to bring murder charges against a woman who undergoes or anyone who provides an abortion.

The same Louisiana bill would seemingly call into question the legality of in vitro fertilization, as well as IUDs, the morning after pill, and other forms of emergency contraception.

I am glad I was on the floor a few minutes ago. My colleague, Senator Duckworth, talked about her two little girls--cutest kids you can imagine.

I remember those kids from the earliest time. When I was in a car driving in the State of Illinois to an event in Bloomington, the phone rang and it was Tammy Duckworth. She was my colleague in the U.S. Senate and--she was going to be my colleague in the U.S. Senate, and she was a Member of the House of Representatives, and she told me that she was going to have a baby. I couldn't believe it.

Tammy and I have known one another since a few weeks after her, I should say, terrible crash of the helicopter in Iraq. I had known what she had gone through, surgeries and recovery, and I was the one who encouraged her to run for office, and I am sure glad I did. She has become the voice of the military, the voice of veterans, and one of most powerful voices in the U.S. Senate.

And when she told the story about those two little girls, born through the process of in vitro fertilization, it struck home.

I am fortunate enough as a grandfather to have two in vitro grandbabies. I love them to pieces, and I thank goodness that there was a science achievement available to help my daughter deliver those beautiful kids.

A Republican lawmaker in Idaho said he is open to banning certain forms of birth control if this decision goes forward at the Supreme Court. He wanted to include plan B emergency contraception and IUDs.

Think about that. State by State, legislator by legislator, will decide what is acceptable when it comes to contraception.

Now, some people are going to think: Durbin, you are exaggerating. Democrats are at it again exaggerating.

But I am old enough to remember before Griswold, the regulation of contraception in those days when it was virtually, in many States, even illegal to buy a condom.

And so you think I am exaggerating? We lived at that time.

It wasn't until Griswold v. Connecticut, decided by the Supreme Court, that established a right of privacy under our Constitution, which then led to Roe v. Wade. That was America. It was an America which, sadly, many Republican lawmakers long for.

A lawmaker in Missouri introduced a bill that deputizes bounty hunters to sue anyone who helps a woman seeking an abortion outside the State of Missouri.

I wanted to remind my colleague from Texas, who spoke just before me, it was the Texas bounty hunter's law that started this conversation in earnest.

In Texas, they decided that there would be a civil penalty that can be charged against those who were engaged in an abortion, and the person could claim that penalty if they disclosed that to the public.

Just a few days ago, the Republican leader in this body, Senator McConnell of Kentucky, said that a national ban on abortion could be ``possible''--a national ban if Roe is overturned and the Republicans take control of the Senate.

Leaving it up to each State to decide a woman's reproductive rights is creating a patchwork quilt of uncertainty. Your constitutional rights would depend on your ZIP Code, but that is exactly the future we are facing.

To be sure, Democratic State legislatures will continue to protect access to abortion unless, of course, Republicans in Congress enact the national ban that Senator McConnell said is possible.

In the absence of a national ban, if you can afford to travel, you will be able to access reproductive care in States like Illinois and Connecticut. But what about everyone else? If the right to have an abortion now depends on where you live or how much money you make, millions of women, many from historically marginalized communities, will face even greater hurdles in obtaining an abortion.

America already has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the developed world. Drastically restricting access to abortion or banning abortion altogether will make those rates worse.

Republicans and anti-choice activists are trying to minimize the impact that erasing Roe would have. They talk about other times the Supreme Court has overturned precedent, and they argue--disingenuously, I think--that this is how the Court has always worked. It corrects its own past mistakes.

They claim that overturning Roe is no different than the Supreme Court overturning Plessy v. Ferguson--a decision which gave us the odious fiction of ``separate but equal'' that was later overturned by Brown v. Board of Education. But there is a profound difference. It appears that never before in the history of America has a Supreme Court decision to abandon settled law made Americans less free--never. In the past, when the Court has taken the serious step of overturning settled law, it has done so to expand freedom, expand opportunity, not eliminate it. What the activist, anti-choice majority on this Court will do is unprecedented, radical, and dangerous.

Here is another fact that Republican lawmakers are hoping you will not notice: It is not just the right to abortion that is in jeopardy; Justice Alito's draft opinion in the Dobbs case questions the very existence of the right to privacy. It argues that unenumerated rights-- that is, rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution--must be deeply rooted in U.S. history and tradition in order to be recognized as a constitutional right. Who decides what is deeply rooted in history and tradition?

The Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision established marriage equality only 7 years ago. Will the Court's reactionary majority put that next on the chopping block?

What about the right to contraception, as I mentioned before, established by Griswold v. Connecticut 11 years before Roe? A Republican Member of this body recently criticized that decision establishing the privacy right of every individual to choose the contraception right for their family. He described this as ``constitutionally unsound.''

Rather than settling the debate on abortion, the draft Dobbs opinion would further divide our fractious Nation and set the stage for a radical majority in the Court to erase even more constitutional rights. It would give government the power to dictate your rights and dictate your future. That is why we must take action to protect women's productive rights.

Tomorrow, the Senate will vote on the Women's Health Protection Act. This bill will codify the right to provide or obtain an abortion free from medically unnecessary restrictions. The American people deserve to know where their Senators stand. I will not stop fighting for the right of every American, especially the women of America, to have these rights as established for over 50 years.

For years, the Republicans have claimed they are the party of families, the party of family values. Yet they have spent decades ignoring the needs of working families. Republicans are willing to force women to carry unwanted or unexpected or even dangerous pregnancies to term, but they are not willing to help them raise their children.

There are aspects of their voting patterns in the Senate that make it clear that when it comes to helping families with the basics, such as tax credits for children, making sure that families have paid medical leave for their newborns or other family members--all of these things are family friendly and family values. Unfortunately, they are not supported by many, if any, Republicans. That would be a demonstration that they truly care for families.

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