Growing Threats and Harms From the Rightwing Judiciary

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Ms. LEE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to convene this Special Order hour today to discuss the growing threats and harms that we have seen from our rightwing judiciary.

From student loan debt to reproductive justice and rights, millions of Americans have found their rights stripped or their prosperity or their interests impeded.

Indeed, I stand here today on behalf of the more than 40 million working- and middle-class Americans eligible for relief under President Biden's student debt cancellation plan, who might never see that relief because a Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority chose to take up a politically motivated lawsuit brought by a network of rightwing billionaires.

To the 1.7 million Pennsylvanians afraid that SCOTUS could rip up your debt relief, I feel your pain.

As a Black woman and a first-generation college student, and a Pell grant recipient that is still in a mountain of student debt myself, I am right there with you--angry and exhausted by a system that is failing us miserably.

Like you, every single decision I make is shaped by the obscene amount of student debt I carry because I had the audacity to pursue a higher education--as the daughter of a working-class single mom from the Mon Valley, indeed.

Millions of folks can't start their lives because of the suffocating burden of their student loan debt; and yet in 2023, only 44 out of the 435 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives carry any student loan debt.

While I hope there are more of us with that lived expertise, I want the rest of my colleagues to hear about the people closest to the pain, like my sister Representative Ayanna Pressley would say.

For poor and working-class folks, crushing student debt is preventing us from buying homes, for saving for retirement, starting businesses, starting families, and building generational wealth.

For all Black college graduates who owe an average of $25,000 more in student loan debt, and for all Black women who carry the highest student debt burdens, it is an even greater barrier.

It is an economic crisis for all poor and working-class folks, and Black and Brown folks are getting hit the hardest.

In western Pennsylvania, the student debt crisis is a regional crisis holding our future hostage by preventing students and workers from accessing the training they need for our region to become the innovation hub and leader in STEM that hundreds of thousands of good- paying jobs depend on right now.

Under President Biden's plan, one in four Black borrowers will see their debt fully eliminated, and nearly half of all Latino borrowers will be entirely debt free.

This is our best shot at addressing the systemic inequities that have forced communities of color to take on higher debt for the chance at a college degree.

On the day the Supreme Court began hearing the case that could rip away relief from this crisis, I met with a group of student organizers from western Pennsylvania on the frontlines of this fight.

Those students who camped out overnight in front of the Supreme Court in the rain to have their voices heard told me what student debt relief would mean to them. They asked me what insight I had in my first 2 months in Congress. I told them these problems are systemic, systemic both in who is behind these attacks and who they hurt the most.

My community will be punished for getting an education for the same reason half of this country doesn't have the freedom to control our bodies and our futures, and the same reason a Federal judge in Texas is expected to outlaw abortion pills.

It is the same reason that corporations are allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections and the same reason corporate PACs are able to come in and blow Black women out of the water when we run for office.

It is because an unelected rightwing Republican-appointed judiciary is waging a full-on assault on our freedoms.

Those folks whose forebearers were enslaved are the folks who today are shackled by tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt.

It is those who are denied access to adequate maternal healthcare by the wealthiest country on Earth that are subjected to forced birth. It is those whose loved ones fled violence for a better life but are separated from their children and locked up at the border.

The most marginalized folks bear the brunt of the reactionary rightwing judiciary's attacks--Black folks, Brown folks, trans folks, poor folks, and otherwise marginalized folks.

Our communities deserve leaders who will fight back as hard as the organizers back home fight every single day; leaders who carry student debt, who have depended on food stamps, leaders who lack access to reproductive healthcare on Medicaid, who went to public schools that were divested, who lived with poor air quality because of unregulated industry. We deserve those sorts of leaders in office to tackle these issues.

That is why I was sent to Congress.

Now I will yield to my colleagues with the lived expertise to fight for you.

Pressley.)

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Ms. LEE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues with the Congressional Progressive Caucus for raising up the danger of the far- right court.

I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. McGarvey), my colleague.

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Ms. LEE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman McGarvey, particularly for lifting up and saying the name of Breonna Taylor here in this space and recognizing the continued struggle for accountability for the thousands, now, way too many, victims of police violence whose names we could not say in this short hour that we have here today.

Jackson Lee).

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania for her leadership. Hopefully, we have been able to share some very important thoughts. I thank her for presiding and leading us on this very important discussion.

We have a Constitution. I hope that I will be holding the Constitution in my hand in a short while.

Obviously, Article I is the Congress. We are to represent the people of this Nation.

Article II is the executive branch.

Article III are supposed to be unfettered, unbiased courts, the Federal courts. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes all over the region, all over the Nation. They are what we call Article III courts.

Certainly, there are State courts, and there are county courts, and there are city courts, but the Federal courts are the place where we believe that there should be the infrastructure of justice, where I can come, where no place else, I might find justice. I can even be pro se. That means, without counsel.

But the laws and the responsibility of the judges, clearly, are to make me feel that I will be receiving justice.

So it saddens me, as a member of the Bar, and someone who, through law school, viewed the Federal judiciary in the highest esteem.

I was an Earl Warren training fellow. Earl Warren, the Supreme Court Justice, Republican, appointed by Eisenhower, I recall, and who presided over the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education that opened the doors for many to be able to have an education that was not segregated, and many other cases that the Court presided over.

But there was something unique that, I believe, that held our consciousness. We always felt that the courts would render truthful judgments, or that they would look for the truth, and that they would discern, between the plaintiff and the defendant, who was telling the truth; and they would rule in justice and the law for those who told the truth.

I hold in my hand the Constitution that also includes the Declaration of Independence, where we all are created equal, with certain inalienable rights, of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I loved what the Founding Fathers said: The power under the Constitution will always be in the people and it is entrusted for certain defined purposes.

It is important to note that even though the men who have said these words were not perfect, the words epitomize who we are; that no matter who you are, what ``unempowerment'' you may have, you should have power in the courts. You should have power in this country, by the very essence of the Constitution.

So I watched with intensity, as a Member of this body, and as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, all of the confirmation hearings where they were selecting a United States Supreme Court Justice.

What struck me most of all, to the last two Justices before Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, is the questioning after questioning to ask them, was Roe v. Wade sound law?

Was Roe v. Wade precedent?

Was Roe v. Wade, for them, a standard of the whole question of precedent that is a basic premise, tenet, basic foundation of the justice that we look to have rendered; that we can count on the Supreme Court's decision; whether it is Brown v. Topeka Board of Education-- maybe that is not solid law, that you can no longer segregate, discriminate in education at all levels; break the chains of segregation in the one-story, one-room schoolhouse with no books, for the Colored children, the Negro children, the Black children, in that instance, which the South proceeded to try and go around by having these private schools.

So, your whole life is around getting justice; and Roe v. Wade was to indicate a stop to back-alley abortions; women dying; being maligned and disgraced; maybe not able to have children ever again. We were able to perceive that that was really a medical decision, and it was a decision that a woman's faith, doctor, and family would help her make; that no one could police your body; that Roe v. Wade was the law of the land.

Yet, in a matter of months--I thought it was just simply seconds-- puff went Roe v. Wade, even in spite of the testimony of the two Justices promoted to the Supreme Court by the former President of the United States that, over and over again, in answer to the question, they said, Roe v. Wade was precedent. That it was the law of the land.

They were under oath, and they did not tell the truth because what happened is that when the Dobbs case came, they immediately jumped to their personal views, their personal beliefs, their personal dislikes, their personal cause and crusade, and ruled abortion, as defined by the Ninth Amendment, of which Roe v. Wade was based on, the right to privacy, unconstitutional.

I don't even know how that could be.

And States like Texas followed with the most heinous of abortion laws that you could ever imagine, criminalizing providers and criminalizing women; creating a havoc in our State; people having to flee across State lines because they could not get the honest and safe medical treatment needed, that was dictated by their physician, their healthcare provider; threatening healthcare providers; threatening Planned Parenthood; threatening clinics; misinterpreting medical procedures as abortions.

I, frankly, believe this MAGA extremism is the very reason why the great tsunami that was expected in the 2022 election did not happen. They did not pay attention to, in 2021, 861 women died of maternal causes in the United States. In the U.S., two-thirds of those pregnancy-related deaths were preventable, and for every pregnancy- related death, there are 70 pregnancy-related near-death experiences.

It is extremely important that we tell it like it is: Women fleeing to get healthcare; doctors being arrested; nurses being arrested, under law, because of Dodd; and, of course, women themselves being threatened.

Let me just read some headlines that came about through this Dodd decision where the Justices would not adhere to the truth and the honesty of their testimony during confirmation hearings under oath where they said that Roe v. Wade was precedent.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article entitled: ``Five women sued Texas over abortion access.'' [From BBC News, Mar. 9, 2023] Five Women Sue Texas Over Abortion Access (By Holly Honderich)

Ms. Zurawski spent three days in intensive care, leaving the hospital after a week, the legal action says. The ordeal has made it harder for her to conceive in future, she said.

The four other women had to travel outside Texas for an abortion.

One of the plaintiffs, Ms. Miller, said: ``Healthcare should not be determined by some politician with no understanding of medicine or the critical role that abortion care plays in pregnancy. How is it that I can get an abortion for a dog but not for me?''

Two of the women's foetuses had conditions that meant they did not develop a skull, according to the lawsuit.

These cases ``are just tip of the iceberg'', the Center for Reproductive Justice's Ms, Northup said.

Their 91-page complaint asks for a ruling that clarifies Texas' law and its stance on ``medical emergencies'' for pregnant women facing grave health risks.

``With the threat of losing their medical licences, fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and up to 99 years in prison lingering over their heads, it is no wonder that doctors and hospitals are turning patients away--even patients in medical emergencies,'' the lawsuit reads.

According to a survey by the Pew Research Center conducted last year, 61% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances, though the opinion poll found public support for the procedure fell as a pregnancy progressed.

Texas' legislature, which is under Republican control, has been at the forefront of anti-abortion legislation, becoming the first state to enact a near-total ban.

And the state will be home to another abortion battle soon: a Texas judge is expected to rule on a case about abortion pills this week.

The Trump-appointed US District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk will decide whether Mifepristone--one of the two drugs used in an abortion pill regime--can continue to be sold in the US.

Five women who say they were denied abortions in Texas despite facing life-threatening health risks have sued the state over its abortion ban.

Texas bars abortions except for medical emergencies, with doctors facing punishment of up to 99 years in jail.

According to the lawsuit, doctors are refusing the procedure even in extreme cases out of fear of prosecution.

In a statement, the office of Attorney General Ken Paxton said he would ``enforce the laws'' of the state.

Mr, Paxton ``is committed to doing everything in his power to protect mothers, families, and unborn children'', the statement said.

The Center for Reproductive Justice has filed the legal action on behalf of the five women--Ashley Brandt, Lauren Hall, Lauren Miller, Anna Zargarian and Amanda Zurawski--and two healthcare providers that are also plaintiffs.

The pro-choice group said it is the first time pregnant women themselves have taken action against anti-abortion laws passed across the US since the Supreme Court last year removed constitutional protection for abortion rights.

``It is now dangerous to be pregnant in Texas,'' said Nancy Northup, the centre's president on Tuesday.

With Ms. Northup outside the Texas Capitol in Austin on Tuesday, the plaintiffs--two pregnant--shared harrowing stories of their previous, lost pregnancies.

According to the legal action, all were told that their foetuses would not survive, but were not given the option of an abortion, which they described as ``standard medical procedure'' throughout the country and in the state before Texas' ban came into effect.

Ms. Zurawski, 35, said she had become pregnant after 18 months of fertility treatments. She had just entered her second trimester when she was told she had dilated prematurely and that the loss of her foetus, whom she and her husband had named Willow, was ``inevitable''.

``But even though we would, with complete certainty, lose Willow, my doctor could not intervene while her heart was still beating or until I was sick enough for the ethics board at the hospital to consider my life at risk,'' Ms. Zurawski said.

For three days, trapped in a ``bizarre and avoidable hell'', Ms. Zurawski was forced to wait until her body entered sepsis--also known as blood poisoning--and doctors were allowed to perform an abortion, according to the lawsuit.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, one of them could not get care until they got blood poisoning, when the doctor was willing to see them.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article from The Washington Post: ``Woman says she carried dead fetus for 2 weeks after Texas abortion ban.'' [From the Washington Post, July 20, 2022] Woman Says She Carried Dead Fetus for 2 Weeks After Texas Abortion Ban (By Timothy Bella)

Marlena Stell's happiness turned to heartbreak after she found out about 9\1/2\ weeks into her pregnancy that she had suffered a miscarriage.

After she was told last year that the fetus did not have a heartbeat and she no longer had a viable pregnancy, the Texas woman asked her doctor to perform a dilation and curettage, or D and C--a standard procedure to remove the fetus following a miscarriage to help prevent infection or long- term health problems. Stell had the procedure after her first miscarriage in 2018 in Washington state, when she felt so much pain that she could not walk, and she wanted to go through with it again before trying again for a second child, she told The Washington Post.

But Stell was even more devastated to learn that because the procedure is also used during abortions, which a Texas law had greatly restricted, the doctor did not want to perform a D and C. Stell would be forced to carry her dead fetus for two weeks before she could find a provider to give her the medical intervention that physicians had denied her.

``My doctor had said that since the heartbeat bill had just passed, she didn't want me to do a D and C. And she asked that I try to miscarry at home,'' said Stell, 42, of Conroe, Tex. ``It just was emotionally difficult walking around, knowing that I had a dead fetus inside.''

Stell, a beauty influencer with about 1.5 million YouTube subscribers, is sharing her story in the weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade as a reminder that the restrictive abortion laws adopted by states such as Texas could affect those who have suffered miscarriages.

``People need to understand how these laws affect all women, even cases like mine,'' she said. ``I feel like it's very dangerous for government of any type to be intervening in a woman's care because there's multiple reasons of why she may need a procedure.''

Stell's story is an example of what physicians and patients could face when it comes to care for miscarriages and maternal health almost a month after the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

As The Post recently reported, doctors in multiple states say the standard of care for miscarriages, as well as ectopic pregnancies and other common complications, are being scrutinized, delayed, or even denied. In Texas--where Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is suing the Biden administration over federal rules requiring abortions to be provided in medical emergencies to save the life of the mother--some doctors are reporting that pharmacists have begun questioning patients who they suspect could be using their miscarriage medications for abortions.

``It is traumatizing to stand in a pharmacy and have to tell them publicly that you are having a miscarriage, that there is not a heartbeat,'' Rashmi Kudesia, a fertility specialist in Houston, told The Post on Saturday.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists estimates that more than 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, the spontaneous demise of a fetus that commonly happen because of chromosomal abnormalities.

The methods of treatment for miscarriage and abortion are the same. A miscarriage can be treated using a mix of drugs such as mifepristone and misoprostol, or through a D and C, which includes dilating the cervix and clearing tissue from the uterus.

After her initial miscarriage in 2018, Stell and her husband had their first child, a daughter, in April 2020. When the couple moved from Washington state to Texas in 2021, they were trying to have a second child, Stell said, even though she knew she was at high risk because of her age, previous health problems and miscarriage. So when she found a doctor who specialized in high-risk pregnancies last summer, she was thrilled to find out that the early weeks of her pregnancy looked promising.

``I was about 7\1/2\ weeks pregnant, and everything looked great,'' Stell said. ``The doctor said there was some movements and fluttering, but everything with the pregnancy looked normal.''

Because she was at high risk, Stell was asked to come back about two weeks later for a follow-up appointment in late September 2021. Because coronavirus-related guidelines prevented her husband from accompanying her in the room, she planned to record on her cellphone what the doctor had to say about the ultrasound.

``I'm getting ready to record because I'm excited,'' Stell recalled. ``But as soon as she started the ultrasound, [the doctor] got really silent, and was just looking and looking and didn't see the fluttering or the movement or anything.''

Stell got the news she feared: She had lost the pregnancy. She was told she had a blighted ovum, which is when a fertilized egg implants in the uterus but does not develop into an embryo.

She was shocked to learn that the common procedure she got so easily in Washington state was anything but simply obtained in Texas. She said she was told she needed additional proof, or multiple ultrasounds, showing that her pregnancy was not viable before she could get a D and C. Nine days into carrying her dead fetus, the sorrow of her first miscarriage had returned.

``I felt like a walking coffin,'' she said, fighting through tears. ``You're just walking around knowing that you have something that you hoped was going to be a baby for you, and it's gone. And you're just walking around carrying it.''

Stell eventually found an abortion services provider in downtown Houston who would give her the D and C on Oct. 4, 2021. After she was met by antiabortion protesters, Stell opened up about the experience on her YouTube channel. While Stell, a cosmetic brand owner and CEO, usually talks about makeup education and other beauty and lifestyle content, the influencer's video on her miscarriage showed a different side.

``I get so angry that I was treated this way because of laws that were passed by men who have never been pregnant and never will be,'' Stell told her followers at the time. ``I'm frustrated, I'm angry, and I feel like the women here deserve better than that. It doesn't matter what side of the fence that you want to sit on, laws like this affect all women regardless of what situation you're in, and it's not right.''

When Roe was overturned last month, Stell said it was her duty to share her story with those who might have similar experiences. After Stell told her story to CNN this week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was among those to cite her as an example of how ``Republican politicians are risking women's health and safety.''

Stell said on Twitter this week that the experience almost 10 months ago is the reason she and her husband have decided that they would not try to have additional children in Texas. She told The Post that her two miscarriages put her at higher risk for a third.

``Our fear is that if I get pregnant and miscarry again that something will happen,'' she said. ``We just do not feel confident at all that we'll get the care that we need in Texas if something were to happen.''

If the miscarriage hadn't happened, Stell and her husband would have had a boy in May. They would have named him Milan. She thinks about what could have been when she reflects on her own story, and how she said she was made to feel as though she had done something wrong when she was already grieving.

``It's added trauma on top of trauma,'' she said. ``It's important to share this story so people know how these laws affect all women.''

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, is there freedom in this Nation? Because of the Texas abortion law, her wanted pregnancy became a medical nightmare. The truth had been taken away.

``Texas woman almost dies because she could not get an abortion.'' These are not willing activities. These are not persons who do not have loving relationships with children. These are not individuals who, in fact, are, if you will, persons who want to rush for an abortion. These are individuals who have had children, who have loving children at home, but have a right, with their medical provider, to deal with their medical procedure.

It is important to take note of the fact that what happens in the courts can truly save lives or cause a loss of life.

In addition to due process under the Fifth Amendment, equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment, and the right to privacy that this little book holds, the courts play a major role.

I thank Congresswoman Lee for leading us in a discussion that challenges the question of truth, the question of unbiased, unfettered decisions, and the question of adherence to the Constitution.

Right now, we are living in a land where the precedent of Roe v. Wade, the right to choose--I never call it the right to an abortion. It is the right to choose, and the medical procedure that you choose should never be limited.

How sad that we have this litany of women, only a few of the thousands impacted because the court refused to adhere to justice and truth.

We, as Members of Congress, need to be able to be the people's representatives, and we must find a way to bring dignity and truth and justice back to our courts.

I, for one, will continue to work to make sure that this is a living document, the Constitution, and that those who are poor or not can find their way to a courthouse under Article III and find justice, freedom, righteousness, and the opportunity to live freely without discrimination in education, to have civil rights and voting rights, and to be able to have jurisdiction over your own body as a woman and to adhere again to a law by the Supreme Court that said, in Roe v. Wade, that women do have that choice. For me, it is the law of the land, and Dodd is a masquerading factor of bias and untruth.

Mr. Speaker, I join my Congressional Progressive Caucus Colleagues here today to speak about the danger that is among us as a result of far-right rhetoric that has resulted in the take down of women's rights in America.

Republicans have continuously proven that they want to police women's bodies and take away our reproductive freedoms.

In the first week of the 118th Congress, extreme Republicans launched attacks on reproductive freedom, intruding on medical decision-making, and keeping their promise to criminalize abortion nationwide with no exceptions.

Now a Texas Federal Judge is attempting to get rid of the much-needed abortion pill.

Women's health is an issue that is very near to my heart.

With reproductive rights being stripped from us, maternal mortality at an all-time high, and violence against women that has surged since the pandemic started, there is growing concern that women's health will continue to suffer on a massive scale.

This attempt to remove medically necessary health care is a disgusting misuse of power and it extremely negligent.

Maternal mortality is an issue that continues to plague the United States health care system.

In 2020, 861 women died of maternal causes in the United States.

In the U.S., two-thirds of those pregnancy related deaths are preventable and for every pregnancy-related death, there are 70 pregnancy-related near-death experiences.

It's extremely important that we remove barriers in health care that may be contributing to these deaths.

Maternal mortality is caused by several issues such as cardiovascular problems, high blood pressure, blood clots, and complications of labor and delivery.

Maternal mortality is caused by several issues such as cardiovascular problems, high blood pressure, blood clots, and complications of labor and delivery. And Black Maternal mortality is a National Health crises.

Women's health is an issue that is very near to my heart. With reproductive rights being stripped from us, maternal mortality at an all-time high, and violence against women that has surged since the pandemic started, there is growing concern that women's health will continue to suffer on a massive scale.

I thank the Congressional Progressive Caucus colleagues for having me here today to talk about this important issue.

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Ms. LEE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Congresswoman. I thank, once again, my colleagues at the Congressional Progressive Caucus for raising the dangers of this far-right court but also for their leadership, their commitment to fighting back, to finding solutions and finding pathways to restore and protect the freedoms of millions of Americans and to create ethical pathways to opportunity.

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