Fight for Women's Reproductive Rights

Floor Speech

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Ms. GARCIA of Texas. Madam Speaker, I rise to urge that now more than ever is the time for us to come together and fight for reproductive rights for women.

Recently, through a leaked Supreme Court opinion, we learned that the progress we have made on a woman's right to choose over the last 50 years is in serious jeopardy.

The Nation learned that the almost 50-year settled law of Roe v. Wade is in danger of being undone at the hands of radical Republican Supreme Court Justices. Even worse, the Republican Party has made it clear its goal is to criminalize--I repeat, criminalize--abortions.

In short, Republicans seek to punish women and providers of abortion for women exercising their basic human rights to control their own bodies. This is terrifying.

For the first time in our history, our daughters will have less freedom than their mothers. This is unacceptable and un-American.

Republican State legislators across the Nation are already seeking to arrest doctors for offering reproductive care, and some also want to ban all abortions with zero exceptions--nada, zero.

In Texas, we have essentially been living life without Roe since the passage of S.B. 8, one of the most horrific abortion laws in the country. We have been basically already working with an abortion ban. Some women have already been charged with murder for making reproductive decisions, like Lizelle Herrera from my home State of Texas.

If Roe v. Wade is criminalized, it will criminalize abortion to trigger a law in Texas that a provider could be charged with a Federal felony, subject to even a lifetime in prison. Lizelle Herrera, having been stripped of her reproductive rights, this innocent woman, was pitted into such a desperate corner by Republicans in Texas that she was forced to carry out a self-induced abortion.

Shockingly, to make matters worse, a hospital she visited following the abortion called police to report her. She was then arrested and faced a severe murder charge. This poor woman was forced to carry out one of the most personal choices a woman can make in an unsafe manner. On top of that, she faced public humiliation and legal backlash for acting on her own in desperation.

Ultimately, the district attorney dropped the charges and admitted Lizelle should never have been arrested. Madam Speaker, there was actually an exemption in our Texas Penal Code on this issue. Frankly, I have no idea why it was even filed.

I agree with the DA. It never should have been filed.

Madam Speaker, 7 out of 10 Texans believe laws in our State should be less strict. However, the damage has been done. She was publicly humiliated, experienced a traumatic experience at the hands of draconian Republican policies, and was subjected to public humiliation and shame and intense media attention. My heart breaks for Lizelle and other women around the country who have or may experience this.

My colleagues, we must not go back. We cannot go back. We must not allow our country to fall back into those dark days before Roe v. Wade when there were--yes, we don't want to talk about it--back-alley abortions, perhaps unsafe illegal abortions, we know. We cannot go back. We must make sure that we do not criminalize abortion.

At the hands of Republicans, my home State, Texas, has given us a glimpse of what it may come to if this leaked Supreme Court opinion is finalized, and it is not pretty. We must do all we can to protect a woman's right to choose.

If the Republican-appointed Supreme Court Justices have it their way, women will be pitted into desperate corners--just like our Texas resident, Lizelle Herrera was. This is wrong. It is cruel. I won't be quiet about this.

This House has already passed a law putting Roe v. Wade in statute. I urge my Senate colleagues to do the same and make sure that Roe v. Wade is the law of the land as it has been for 50 years, and that we protect a woman's right to make a very personal healthcare decision for herself and her family and her future. We must not go back.

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