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Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, yesterday, my Republican colleagues introduced a national abortion ban and made it clear that they are coming after the rights of my constituents and they are coming after the rights of people across the country.

This atrocious bill threatens the people of Kansas who just voted overwhelmingly to protect abortion rights. It threatens the hundreds of thousands of people in Michigan who just signed a petition for a referendum vote to protect abortion and States like mine which already have strong abortion protections on our books.

Up to now, Republicans have tried to play down their abortion extremism. They have tried to run away from the consequences of their extreme agenda, even as patients have been denied prescriptions that they need, even as doctors have been forced to wait until patients' lives are in danger before they can take action, even as healthcare crises they have caused spill across State lines to disastrous effect.

But despite their empty rhetoric about leaving it to States, the truth has been painfully clear: They think they know better than women when it comes to reproductive healthcare decisions. They have shown, again and again, they do not trust women to have full control over their own bodies, and they are also willing to go after doctors.

They have blocked the most basic bills like Senator Cortez Masto's bill that would have made sure people can still travel to other States for legally available care or my bill making sure that doctors in States where abortion is legal cannot be punished for doing their job.

Over and over, they have stood in the way of Democrats' efforts to protect women's abortion rights, and it is crystal clear why. This bill shows the true Republican position. They want to ban abortion for everyone, in every single State, and they want to punish doctors. They want to put them in prison for doing their jobs.

So, to anyone who lives in a blue State like mine, anyone who thinks they are safe from these attacks, here is the painful reality: Republicans are coming after your rights, and you don't have to take my word for it. The Senator from South Carolina said yesterday:

If we take back the House and the Senate, I can assure you we'll have a vote on our bill.

There it is. It couldn't be clearer. That is the MAGA agenda for all 50 States: rights stripped away and doctors in prison.

Regardless of your circumstances, regardless of what is best for your health, regardless of your family plans--of your hopes or your fears or your dreams for your future--Republicans want to control your personal decisions. They don't trust you to have full control over your own body. This is horrifying.

When he unveiled the bill yesterday, the Senator from South Carolina also said

I'll make a prediction: we stay on this and we keep talking about it, maybe less than a decade from now, this will be law.

``This will be law.'' This is the future that they want--a national abortion ban.

Well, let me tell you something. The Senator from South Carolina may not have been paying attention, but Democrats are already talking about this issue every week, every day, every opportunity. And women across the country have been with us, fighting for the right to abortion and fighting back against Republicans' harmful attacks. We saw it in Kansas. We are seeing it in Michigan. And I am seeing it everywhere I go in Washington State.

I have been talking to doctors and patients and women and men across our country, and they are outraged--outraged--that Republicans want to take away their rights, that Republicans want to put doctors in prison. And I am too. I have never been madder.

So here is my message to Republicans: If you want to go after my constituents' rights, if you want to go after women's bodies and futures, if you want to pass a national abortion ban like this extreme bill, you are going to have to go through me because Democrats are going to keep standing up for women and men across the country who do not want their rights taken away.

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