Tax Convention with Chile

Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, as we know, this Saturday marks the 1-year anniversary of the day the U.S. Supreme Court decided to overturn half a century of precedent on a woman's right to make her own healthcare decisions.

I appreciate the remarks of my colleague from Rhode Island and all of my colleagues who are here today.

When they made this decision, it went against the 70 to 80 percent of Americans who believe that this decision should be made by a woman and her family and her doctor and not by politicians. As a result, as we predicted that day, women across the country are at the mercy of a patchwork of State laws governing their ability to access reproductive care.

In States like Texas, women have been forced to carry pregnancies for days after learning that their baby would not survive because their doctors can't legally provide care unless their life is at risk.

And then there was the heartbreaking story about the 10-year-old girl in Ohio who had to go to Indiana to get an abortion after she was raped--10 years old. People said it was some kind of a hoax. It wasn't. It was real. And everyone in this Chamber knows it.

The Supreme Court's decision threatened women's health and freedom. And to this day, it demands a legislative response, not a response where the women of Texas are told that they have different rights. In fact, no rights compared to women in Minnesota or even in our next-door State of Wisconsin. Part of that is codifying Roe v. Wade into law. That is true.

We must also address the full scope that women are facing, the full scope of threats right now. Recent reports have illustrated how social media companies are collecting and data brokers are selling location data that could be used to identify women seeking reproductive healthcare services.

We know that the collection of this data, we know that people on both sides of the aisle understand that this has ramifications beyond women seeking abortion care. They could have anyone, man or woman, seeking a mental health provider, an addiction clinic, counseling therapy--all of it--the rules are murky, and the data is being collected and sold.

That is why I am leading the UPHOLD Privacy Act with a number of our colleagues, including Senator Warren and Senator Hirono. And that is why I am seeking unanimous consent to pass this legislation.

Our bill sets commonsense limits on how companies can use people's personal data. First, it bans data brokers from selling location data. Women making their most personal healthcare decisions should be able to go to their doctors' appointments and consult specialists without worrying that the data about their location where they are going to be or are will be purchased or sold.

Second, it says you can't use health data for commercial advertising purposes, period. That means companies can't use data from fitness trackers or browser histories to sell ads, all healthcare data.

Third, it gives consumers more say over how their personal healthcare information is used by allowing them to request that their data be deleted.

It also places limits on what health data companies can collect about Americans. Consumers deserve to be in the driver's seat when it comes to determining how their personal health data is used. This legislation does just that.

It is past time that we update our privacy laws, in general, and I hope we get that done by the end of this year. But we must also update our health privacy laws to reflect the reality of how social media platforms and data brokers are profiting off our data.

In a world without Roe, this couldn't be more urgent. I supported, with a Republican, limits on this health data to begin with, and now, as we are in this post-Roe world, as I know, it becomes even more important.

I invite my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in declaring that these Big Tech companies cannot sell off, through data brokers, our private personal healthcare and that our decisions should never be a tool for profit. This is not a radical proposal. It is completely common sense.

As we get closer to marking a year without Roe v. Wade, I continue to stand with my colleagues in the fight for reproductive freedom. We stand firmly on the side of the American people who have come together, time and time again, in Kentucky, in Michigan, in Montana, and in the middle of the prairie in Kansas to defend reproductive rights. We will not settle for a reality in which our daughters have fewer rights than their mothers and their grandmothers.

631 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Just a few specific responses. First of all, this bill is very specific. It addresses health and location data, and, as I noted before, I continue to believe that we need Federal privacy legislation, in general, to address other privacy needs. But this bill is targeted at sensitive health data when it comes to location.

And I know it was the conservative members of the Supreme Court who actually issued the broad decision to overturn half a century of precedent on a woman's right to make her own healthcare decisions. And this bill is a targeted response on one issue, and that is to set commonsense limits on how companies can use people's personal data.

I just also wanted to respond to the issue of mifepristone, which was temporarily thrown out by one judge in the State of Texas, and that is now pending before several different courts. A different decision was made in another court, in Washington State. But I will note that the statute referred to, which would somehow limit this drug that was approved by the FDA decades ago and has been found safe in dozens and dozens of countries across the globe--that law that was referred to was actually enacted, the Comstock Act in 1873--1873--when they treated pneumonia with bloodletting, when the Pony Express existed, and, which I know, is 10 years before they even did the ``Yellowstone'' prequel.

So if my colleagues want to move backward to that time period, those are the laws they are citing. I believe the people of this country want to move forward.

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