Women's Reproductive Rights

Floor Speech

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Madam Speaker, I thank Chairwoman Maloney for her tremendous leadership on so many issues, including reproductive rights, and for holding a hearing earlier in her committee on abortion and inviting several of us to testify.

I am very proud to be here as the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. This is our Special Order hour, and I couldn't be prouder to be dedicating this Special Order hour to this critical issue of women's freedom, because that is what we are talking about is women's freedom.

The leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court represents an unprecedented, unlawful, and unjust attack on our constitutional reproductive rights. Reproductive rights groups and Black and Brown folks on the front line of this fight have been sounding the alarm for years that this day would come. The leaked draft opinion is a culmination of decades of insidious work from the extreme right, who have rigged the system in their favor.

I speak to you, Madam Speaker, today as one of the one in four women in America who have had an abortion. For people to understand how I ultimately decided to have an abortion, I have to start with the birth of my first child, Janak. Janak was born at 26\1/2\ weeks while I was on a 2-year fellowship in India. She weighed only 1 pound 14 ounces, and upon birth she went down to a weight of just 21 ounces. Janak was so small, she fit into the palm of my hand. She was no bigger than a medium-sized squash. For 3 months, we did not know if Janak would live or die. She needed multiple blood transfusions, she had to be fed drop by drop, and she constantly had her heart stop and restart.

We returned to the United States after 3 months, and in those early, intensely difficult years, Janak had hydrocephalus, water in her brain. She had seizures and she returned repeatedly to the emergency room because of life-threatening pneumonia. The fact that Janak is today a 26-year-old beautiful human being is a true miracle, and the greatest gift in my life.

At the same time that Janak was born, I was also fighting to keep my legal permanent resident status, married to a U.S. citizen and with a U.S. citizen child, and yet without the ability to return with the same status that I had. In the end, I was able to return to the United States with Janak, provided that I started from scratch to qualify for citizenship.

As a new mom taking care of a very sick baby and recovering from major surgery myself, I was struggling. I experienced severe postpartum depression and post-traumatic stress disorder that was only diagnosed after I contemplated suicide and realized that I needed to seek help. My marriage did not survive. We split custody of Janak, and I was a part-time single parent.

Shortly after, I met a wonderful man who is my husband today. I knew I was not ready to have another child, so I religiously took my daily contraceptive pill. Despite that, I became pregnant. I consulted with my doctors, who told me that any future pregnancy would likely also be high risk to me and to my child, similar to what I had gone through with Janak. I very much wanted to have more children, but I simply could not imagine going through that again.

After discussions with my partner, who was completely supportive of whatever choice I made, I decided to have an abortion. Two decades later, I think about those moments on the table in the doctor's office, a doctor who was kind and compassionate and skilled, performing abortions in a State that recognizes a person's constitutional right to make their choices about their reproductive care.

For me, terminating my pregnancy was not an easy choice, but it was my choice, and it really shouldn't matter if it is a difficult or hard choice. That choice, that freedom is what has to be preserved for every pregnant person, a freedom that cannot be dictated by people in the minority pushing their extremist agenda on everybody else, the Supreme Court included.

Until 2019, so for 15 years, I never spoke publicly or privately about my abortion. In fact, I didn't even tell my mother about it. Some of it was because as an immigrant from a culture that deeply values children and in a society that still stigmatizes abortion here in the United States, I felt a shame that I never should have felt.

Two years ago, I decided to tell my story as a Member of Congress because I was so deeply concerned about the abortion ban legislation that was coming out from States across the country, and I became only the second Member of Congress to publicly talk about my abortion.

Today, as we are on the cusp of a horrific decision from the Supreme Court to criminalize women's rights and the right to an abortion, we all have to speak out to tell our truths if we are able. I want you to know that there are so many different situations that people face in making these choices.

Whether the choice to have an abortion is easy or hard, whether there are traumatic situations or not, none of this should be the issue. It is simply nobody's business what choices we pregnant people make about our own bodies. Let me be very clear, I would never tell people who don't choose to have an abortion that they should have an abortion, nor should they tell me that I shouldn't. This is a constitutionally protected, intensely personal choice.

I did not suffer the economic issues that so many poor people suffer. I did not suffer from living in a State that doesn't allow pregnant people to make these choices, and I was very privileged to live in a world post-Roe v. Wade where abortion had been established as settled law as a constitutional right.

Today, abortion is still the law of the land, and providers remain hard at work to give the care that so many desperately need and deserve. But it is clear that the Supreme Court, a majority on the Supreme Court who were appointed by two Republican Presidents who did not win even the majority of the popular vote, that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn this fundamental right to choose. And the communities that will pay the steepest prices are our low-income communities, our Black and Brown communities, our LGBTQ communities.

The Progressive Caucus and our members have been at the forefront of protecting these rights and ensuring that we in the House passed the Women's Health Protection Act, that we work to repeal the Hyde amendment, and that we remove the stigma around abortion care and reproductive health choices.

This is existentially urgent, and we will not allow the Supreme Court or the United States Senate, the people who voted against the codification of Roe v. Wade, to win in this battle. We will fight to the very end for our freedoms.

Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Jayapal for her leadership of the Progressive Caucus and for her strength in sharing her very personal and painful story. It has given me more strength to fight this battle, and I hope it will inspire many, many more as we fight for our basic rights.

Madam Speaker, I yield now to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jones), a leader in the Progressive Caucus.

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