Dear Friends,

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which created a federal right for a woman to have an abortion. On what should be an important anniversary celebrating our nation’s progress in upholding equal rights for women, we are instead witnessing the devastating impacts of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which turned back the clock on access to reproductive care and eliminated a woman’s constitutional right to choose.

Access to abortion is critical healthcare. More than 20% of the country's population currently resides in states where abortion is illegal, with approximately 36 million women of reproductive age facing abortion bans or restrictions. To deny a woman the ability to make decisions about her body, life, and future is not only regressive but undemocratic: a 2022 Pew Survey reports that 61% of Americans believe abortion should be legal.

Reproductive health is a core tenet of women’s equality: abortion access increases education retention, graduation rates, labor participation, and financial security for women and families. Anti-abortion restrictions entrench women, particularly marginalized groups and people of color, in systems of inequality and economic insecurity, with 3/4ths of abortion patients being low-income.
 
Unsurprisingly, Republicans have already introduced legislation that will institute a federal ban on abortion and restrictions on a woman’s ability to choose her own medical care in cases of fatal fetal diagnosis.

Last Congress, I supported several bills that would protect and expand reproductive health access:

• Women’s Health Protection Act codifies abortion access into federal law;
• Abortion is Healthcare Everywhere Act repeals the Helm Amendment, known as the “Global Gag Rule,” which prohibits US funding for entities abroad that provide any abortion services or reproductive health information, even if the assistance does not go towards abortion services;  
• Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance Act repeals the Hyde Amendment that bars federal funding, specifically for Medicaid, from covering abortion services;
• Ensuring Access to Abortion Act prohibits state abortion laws from interfering with a person’s ability to travel out of state for abortion services.