“It might not be front-page news every day, but when you take all of these actions together, it is clear that this administration and Republicans at every level of government are taking the steps they need to implement a nationwide abortion ban.”
Video of the spotlight forum is available here.
Video of her speaking on the floor of the Senate is available here.
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) called out Republican attempts to further take away access to reproductive health care for women across the United States, including efforts that could restrict access for women in Nevada. Today marks three years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which the Court overturned the protections of Roe v. Wade.
Cortez Masto participated in a spotlight forum with patient, provider, and reproductive rights leaders to highlight the devastation caused since Dobbs, and the continued attacks from the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress to strip away access to abortion care, family planning services, and Medicaid and Affordable Care Act health coverage. Additionally, the Senator spoke on the Senate floor to call attention to the various ways the Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans are working to create a backdoor national abortion ban, ripping away millions of women’s access to abortion care and right to control their bodies.
Senator Cortez Masto also joined all Democratic Senators in introducing the Women’s Health Protection Act, legislation to guarantee access to abortion everywhere across the country and restore the right to comprehensive reproductive health care for millions of Americans. The bill’s introduction comes as the Trump Administration further attacks a woman’s right to choose and Congressional Republicans barrel ahead with a bill that defunds Planned Parenthood.
Senator Cortez Masto has been a fierce advocate for women’s reproductive rights. In response to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Cortez Masto introduced the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act to ensure legal protections for women traveling across state lines to receive reproductive care. She’s championed legislation torepeal the Comstock Act, an arcane 1873 law that anti-choice extremists have repeatedly invoked as a backdoor means to effectively ban abortion nationwide without a single act of Congress. In the last Congress, the Senator also cosponsored legislation to codify the right to contraception and IVF.
Below are her floor remarks as prepared for delivery:
M. President, right now, this administration is causing so much chaos and confusion that it’s sometimes hard to take stock of the damage being done.
But the anniversary of the day Roe v. Wade was overturned is a reminder that we can’t let all that chaos distract us from the work being done to roll back women’s reproductive rights right under our noses.
Take the Republicans’ billionaire tax giveaway bill as an example.
We all know that this bill will cut $800 billion in Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, but the legislation that passed the House would also decimate women’s health care. Not only would it force cuts to critical services, but it also cuts off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood.
That Medicaid funding wouldn’t be going toward abortions. Planned Parenthood providers distribute birth control, conduct wellness exams, test for and treat STIs, and provide lifesaving cancer screenings.
For many Americans with Medicaid, especially in underserved areas, Planned Parenthood is the only accessible source of this care.
Defunding it jeopardizes basic health services that more than one million men and women rely on.
It’s already outrageous that so many Planned Parenthood health centers in anti-choice states around the country have been forced to close over the last several years. But if they’re prohibited from treating patients with Medicaid nationwide, many clinics – even in states where abortion remains legal – may be forced to close their doors.
So in states like Nevada, where women have access to essential reproductive care, Republicans are working to strip that access away – ignoring the will of states that have chosen to protect these rights.
Republican legislators in states across the country are also quietly working to gut access to reproductive care.
Last November, voters in 7 different states approved ballot measures to protect or expand reproductive rights. But in the months since, extremist politicians in more than half of those states have tried to ignore the will of their voters and push new restrictions on abortion access.
And, in several other states, anti-choice politicians are working to block similar ballot initiatives in the future. They’re trying to ignore what people have clearly voted for, and then they’re trying to make it so people can’t actually vote on those issues at all.
Because let’s be clear: for anti-choice politicians, this is about controlling women.
I’ll give you an example.
In Arizona, voters went to the polls last November and overwhelmingly chose to enshrine abortion protections in their state constitution. But since then, Republican politicians in their state legislature have been trying to pass bills that would limit the use of medication abortion and ban doctors from even informing women about abortion as a potential treatment option.
Or how about in Missouri, where anti-choice politicians are trying to get a measure on the ballot that would overturn the abortion rights protections Missouri voters just approved last November.
These plots to subvert the will of voters and roll back women’s rights in the states may not be capturing everyone’s attention right now, but it’s happening. And we need to shed light on it, because it’s just as dangerous as some of the harmful policies coming out of this administration.
We can’t forget that this administration is also taking steps to continue to take away women’s reproductive rights – without any input from legislators at all.
The Food and Drug Administration has appointed commissioners who want to reexamine the safety of the abortion pill mifepristone.
And, no surprise, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is encouraging it.
He’s already asked the FDA to “review the latest data on mifepristone”. Secretary Kennedy is raising questions and injecting doubt about this medication that has already been proven to be safe and effective.
This is a man who, at one time, said he believed it was “always the woman’s right to choose.”
Mifepristone accounts for over 60% of abortions nationwide. Any attempts to restrict access to this medication would jeopardize the health and autonomy of women in Nevada and across the country.
This is an overt tactic by the administration to continue to take away access to the abortion pill nationwide.
In fact, the Trump administration made it more clear than ever that they’re not concerned about women’s safety when they eliminated guidance that hospitals have to provide abortions in emergency situations.
We have a law in this country that hospitals that receive federal funding are required to provide medical care to stabilize a health emergency, including for pregnant patients. In cases where an abortion is necessary to stabilize a patient, hospitals are obligated to provide that care. It’s called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA.
Now, I want to stress that EMTALA is the law of the land, and emergency abortion care is protected under EMTALA.
But the problem is that this administration is telling women they are unwilling to enforce those protections. That’s incredibly dangerous, and it ignores our laws.
It might not be front-page news every day, but when you take all of these actions together, it is clear that this administration and Republicans at every level of government are taking the steps they need to implement a nationwide abortion ban.
We have to remain vigilant and demand change when these harmful policies they emerge. Because we know anti-choice politicians all across the country, including here in Washington, will continue to push them and take away women’s access to health care.
It’s happening at the Supreme Court, too, where the justices who struck down Roe v. Wade are taking up multiple abortion rights cases.
So, as we mark the anniversary of the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which took the constitutional right to an abortion away from every woman in this country, I want to thank my colleagues who are standing with me today and every day in this fight.
We will never stop pushing back against this administration’s, and any other anti-choice politician’s, attempts to make women second-class citizens in America.
###