Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), issued a statement ahead of the two-year anniversary of the May 2nd leak of the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade.
“Two years after the leak of the devastating Dobbs decision—as we watch Republicans enact cruel and dangerous abortion bans like the near-total ban that went into effect in Florida yesterday—I want the American people to remember and understand that it was Donald Trump who unleashed this chaos and cruelty all across America.
“Donald Trump has made plain that he is willing to give Republican lawmakers free rein to pass the most extreme bans imaginable, punish women for seeking abortion care, and surveil pregnant women—and he would absolutely allow a national abortion ban to become law. The Republican Speaker of the House believes frozen embryos should have the same rights as living, breathing human beings. Americans should pay attention because the suffering we are seeing in states with abortion bans—like pregnant women facing criminalization and jail time over a miscarriage—will only get worse until we have a pro-choice majority in Congress that will pass the Women’s Health Protection Act and reinstate the right to abortion nationwide.
“We have also seen over the last two years that women will not be quiet in the face of their fundamental freedoms being stripped away—abortion rights have won every time they’ve been on the ballot, and we’re going to keep fighting with everything we’ve got until women in every state have the right to make their own health care decisions, without interference from politicians.”
Senator Murray is a longtime leader in the fight to protect and expand access to reproductive health care and abortion rights, and she has led Congressional efforts to fight back after the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision overturning Roe v. Wade last year. Murray led her colleagues at the outset of this Congress to make crystal clear that Senate Democrats are continuing to fight to protect every American’s reproductive rights and will be a firewall against Republicans’ continued attacks on women’s rights—and that’s exactly what she’s doing now. Murray has introduced more than a dozen pieces of legislation to protect reproductive rights from further attacks, protect providers, and help ensure women get the care they need; she also co-leads the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would restore the right to abortion nationwide. Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision, Senator Murray led Senate Democrats in seeking unanimous consent on the Senate floor for four common-sense bills to protect women’s fundamental freedoms, and in January she led her colleagues in hosting a “State of Abortion Rights” briefing with women who have suffered firsthand from Republican abortion bans.
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