Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court took the extraordinary step of overturning two landmark decisions, Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, stripping women of the right to make their own choices about their bodies and rolling back nearly half a century of reproductive rights and the right to privacy. Since the news broke Friday, I’ve had dozens of conversations with friends, family members, constituents, and colleagues as we all confront a future when the fundamental rights of women, minorities, and all Americans may be increasingly curtailed by the Supreme Court. A woman’s fundamental right to make her own health decisions, in consultation with her doctor and her loved ones, must be protected, and that’s why I will continue to work unyieldingly with my colleagues to enshrine Roe v. Wade in law.
As your Member of Congress, I will aways fight to secure and protect a woman’s reproductive freedoms. That’s why I cosponsored and helped to pass through the House the Women’s Health Protection Act to codify the right to privacy and bodily autonomy in federal law. While the Senate has blocked the passage of that legislation, I’m working with my colleagues in Congress and President Biden to use all the tools at our disposal to expand access to safe reproductive care while fighting back against every extremist attempt to criminalize women making their own medical decisions.
