OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Refrigerator Freedom Act

Floor Speech

Date: July 9, 2024
Location: Washington, DC

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Ms. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, today, the majority has decided to protect household appliances. That is the most important thing we can focus on in this House in 2024, the year of our Lord, with so much happening. Instead of doing the work that the American people sent us here to do, we are protecting household appliances.

In 2022, we saw the Supreme Court end a woman's right to reproductive choice, and 21 States have followed suit with even greater attempts to limit women's reproductive healthcare.

This bill, which I introduced with my colleagues, Representatives Fletcher and Raskin, would make sure that individuals crossing State lines are constitutionally protected when seeking safe and legal reproductive healthcare, or those traveling with them are protected from receiving criminal punishment.

Impeding a woman's right to travel for healthcare is an assault on her freedom. Criminalizing women for crossing State lines to get reproductive care is a violation of the 14th Amendment.

Being denied an abortion disproportionately affects women of color, especially Black women. Black women in the U.S. are more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth than women in any other racial group. Women deserve to be prioritized over household appliances.

It is well past time for Congress to pass real legislation to protect real people, not household appliances.

I urge you to pass my motion to recommit and do the real work that the American people sent us here to do.

For this reason, at the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to committee. If the House rules permitted, I would have offered the motion with an important amendment to this bill. My amendment would bring up H.R. 782, the Ensuring Women's Right to Reproductive Freedom Act.

STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will join me in voting for the motion to recommit.

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Ms. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

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Ms. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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