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Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today in support of the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act--something that Senator Cortez Masto, our colleague from Nevada, is leading.

I do want to take a moment, however, to note that there are many things we need to do to reduce costs. I appreciated the words of my colleague from the neighboring State of South Dakota, and I think he is well aware that pharmaceutical prices are No. 1 on the minds of people in many of our States. I ask Republicans to join us in pushing Medicare to finally negotiate lifting the ban so we can negotiate less expensive drugs under Medicare Part D--something that every Democrat is committed to in our caucus and we hope to get done in the next month.

I also note that the President recently came out for E15--something Senator Thune and I have worked together on for years, and that is now in place as one competitive fuel that should help--not alleviate everything but be a major help--and the release of the oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and so many other areas where we are working together.

I don't think anyone thought we could emerge from a 2-year pandemic and everything was going to be the same. Obviously, there is work left together for the country to bring down costs, and that is on all of our minds.

Madam President, also on our minds is what has recently happened with the Supreme Court and the decision in the Dobbs case. Twenty days ago-- only 20 days ago, and you can see everything that has happened since that time--the Supreme Court issued a ruling shredding nearly five decades of precedent protecting a woman's right to make her own healthcare decisions. Now women are at the mercy of a patchwork of State laws governing their ability to access reproductive care, leaving them with fewer rights than their moms and their grandmas.

In just 20 days, over 20 States have laws in place that could be used to restrict access to abortion. Twenty-five States in total are expected to ban abortion in the days and the weeks ahead. But, colleagues, I am afraid the worst is yet to come.

Legislation was introduced in Missouri to allow private citizens to act as vigilantes and sue people who help women cross State lines for reproductive care--vigilantes, just like we saw in Texas. In Texas, legislators are working on a bill to criminalize businesses that provide resources simply to help their workers obtain abortion services in other States.

These proposals don't just hurt those in need of care; they are also creating an uncertain environment for doctors and straining resources at clinics in States like Minnesota where reproductive rights are protected, two major States in the Midwest--that is it--Illinois and Minnesota.

I spoke on the phone with the head of the Red River Women's Clinic out of Fargo, ND, who had to resort to a GoFundMe page to get the money she needs to move her clinic across the river to Minnesota to a safe place.

Planned Parenthood in Moorhead, MN--I met with them only a week ago about the services and the work they are doing right now.

In Montana, clinics have already begun requiring proof of residency from women seeking abortion pills because they are afraid they might be pursued by out-of-State prosecutors.

Of course, we should never settle for a situation where women in Minnesota have different rights than women in Missouri or where women in Illinois have different rights than women in Texas, but with so many extreme Republicans racing to State capitals to be the first to take away women's rights, it is clear we must explicitly protect the right to travel to other States to access reproductive care. We don't have to imagine why this might matter. We don't need to conjure up hypotheticals. We already know what has happened.

Think about the heartbreaking, enraging story about the 10-year-old girl in Ohio who had to go to Indiana to get an abortion after she was impregnated by her rapist. When that story came out last week, some people doubted it. Now, in clear print in the criminal complaint out of the State of Ohio, we saw yesterday that, yes, this happened. This man raped a 10-year-old girl, and she got pregnant, and then she couldn't even get the care she needed--at age 10--to get an abortion. She had to go across State lines to the State of Indiana just to get her care.

Should the next little 10-year-old's right or 12-year-old's right or 14-year-old's right to get the care that she desperately needs be put in jeopardy? What about her mom? What about her doctor? Where will this end?

That is why we must not just codify Roe v. Wade into law with the bill that we voted on just last month, but we must also pass the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act by unanimous consent right now. That is a bill that our great colleague Senator Cortez Masto is leading.

Our bill protects women and girls from being punished for traveling to another State to access abortion services. It also ensures doctors won't be punished for providing reproductive care outside their home States. As clinics across the country struggle to navigate this post- Roe nightmare landscape, they should not have to add to their list of worries whether they will be criminally prosecuted for serving patients in a nearby State. This is an issue, as I noted, that hits close to home because of Minnesota being in the neighborhood that includes the States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin, all of which have various issues with reproductive healthcare.

The freedom to travel cannot be an empty promise. That is why the bill gives the Department of Justice, as well as women and doctors, the power to sue people who infringe on the right to travel for healthcare. Women in States with abortion bans already face enough obstacles to care. We can't wait to see what anti-choice State legislators criminalize next. We have to act now.

All of this comes down to one question: Who should get to make the personal decisions for a woman or for a 10-year-old girl? Should it be her family? Should it be a woman herself? Or should it be politicians, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who supported these Justices, put them in place in the Supreme Court, and got us to where we are right now? I think the answer is clear.

Today, each and every one of my colleagues has the opportunity to show where they stand. Will we come together to protect this essential right to seek healthcare across State lines for the sake of the women and, yes, the young girls across this country? I hope we do.

I thank Senator Cortez Masto for her leadership.

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