Dear John,

This week, we take a deep dive on the abortion issue, reporting on the just-passed near total abortion ban in Texas, the harm of “reason based” abortion bans, and – on the good news front – the latest on telemedicine abortion, now available in 20 states, and counting.

And we explain how the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), reintroduced in Congress this week, would write into federal law the protections for abortion set out in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, thus establishing the legal right to abortion in all 50 states. If enacted, the WHPA would explicitly prohibit states from passing laws that restrict and impede access to abortion, including pre-viability bans like the 15-week ban in the Mississippi law currently before the Supreme Court.

Quite simply, as WHPA co-sponsor Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), explained: “The Women’s Health Protection Act will take the power to make these deeply personal medical decisions out of governors’ mansions and state legislatures and put it back where it belongs: in the hands of patients and persons they trust.”

Abortion rights advocates are under no illusions about the difficult fight ahead to secure passage of the WHPA or the recently introduced EACH Act that would remove abortion restrictions in federal health insurance programs.  Even if passage in the House is secured, the bills will no doubt face a Republican-led filibuster in the Senate.

I’ve written before about the Senate filibuster rule that allows a minority of senators to block a bill from coming before the full Senate for a vote. Currently, it takes 60 senators to vote to end a filibuster – a procedure called “cloture.” Even bills that have a majority of senators in support who would vote for passage if brought up before the full Senate, can be blocked indefinitely from a final vote by a filibuster.  Historically, the filibuster has been used to block passage of civil rights and voting rights laws – hence its characterization by President Biden as a “relic of the Jim Crow era.”

The filibuster also has been used repeatedly to block progress on women’s rights. Just this week, a Republican-led filibuster blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act from full Senate consideration.  A vote in the full Senate is currently stalled on a resolution that would clear the way for adding the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, despite majority support among senators.

And the filibuster is being used to hold up Senate consideration of the “American Jobs and Families Plans” proposed by the Biden-Harris administration. Together, the two plans would invest in roads, bridges, water systems, broadband, clean energy and other critical physical infrastructure, as well as investments in the country’s vital caregiving infrastructure including child care, early education and community health care workers.

Contrary to widespread misunderstanding, the filibuster is not written into the Constitution, nor is it mandated anywhere in federal law. The filibuster is a “procedural rule” of the Senate, that the Senate has adopted and that the Senate can decide to eliminate.

Our team at Ms. is working to keep the Ms. community of readers up-to-date on the increasing pressure on Senate Democrats to eliminate the filibuster rule (we’re looking at you, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema) so that forward progress can again be made – for all of us.

So, stay tuned!

For equality,

Kathy Spillar
Executive Editor