(Washington, D.C.) – Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) led a group of Democratic colleagues, including Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), in re-introducing the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act. As states across the country continue to attack women’s freedoms, this legislation would block anti-choice states from limiting travel for abortion services and empower the U.S. Attorney General and impacted individuals to bring civil action against those who restrict a woman’s right to cross state lines to receive legal reproductive care.
“It’s been one year since Republicans have ripped away every woman’s right to access reproductive health care, and some Republican lawmakers want to take it a step further and hold women captive in their own states by punishing them for exercising their constitutional right to travel within our country to get the care they need,” said Senator Murray. “Restricting women’s right to travel across state lines is truly radical—and un-American. Our bill would protect Americans’ constitutional right to travel across state lines to get a lawful abortion—and protect the providers who care for them.”
“In the year since Roe v. Wade was overturned we’ve seen anti-choice politicians ban abortion in states across the country, and it’s critical that we protect women who must travel to states like Nevada to get the health care they need,” said Senator Cortez Masto. “Women’s freedoms are fundamental, and my bill sends a strong message to anti-choice states: you cannot punish women for seeking the care they need.”
Anti-choice politicians in states like Idaho, Tennessee, Texas, and Missouri are working to punish both women for leaving their state for reproductive care and the doctors and employers who help them. The Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act underscores the Constitutional protections for interstate travel and provides redress for women whose rights are violated. The legislation would also protect health care providers in pro-choice states like Washington from prosecution and lawsuits for serving individuals traveling from other states.
In addition to Senators Murray, Cortez Masto, Whitehouse, and Gillibrand, the legislation is cosponsored by Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Ed Markey (D-MA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Chris Coons (D-DE) Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ben Cardin (D-MD) Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ) Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Tina Smith (D-MN) Tom Carper (D-DE), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Mark Warner (D-VA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), John Fetterman (D-PA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).
This legislation is endorsed by NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, National Women’s Law Center, Center for Reproductive Rights, Physicians for Reproductive Health, National Partnership for Women & Families, Catholics for Choice, Power to Decide, National Council of Jewish Women, and the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association.
Senator Murray is a longtime leader in the fight to protect and expand access to reproductive health care and abortion rights, and since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, she has led Congressional efforts to fight back. Murray led her colleagues at the very 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 and 48 of her Democratic colleagues recently reintroduced the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would restore the right to abortion nationwide.
###
English 
Spanish