IV 
119TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. CON. RES. 65 
Commending State and local governments for championing reproductive rights 
as human rights. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
DECEMBER 10, 2025 
Ms. WILLIAMS of Georgia (for herself, Ms. ADAMS, Mr. CARTER of Louisiana, 
Mr. CASAR, Ms. MCCLELLAN, Mr. RASKIN, Ms. VELA´ZQUEZ, Ms. CHU, 
Ms. CROCKETT, Mr. DOGGETT, Ms. SIMON, Ms. BONAMICI, Ms. WILSON 
of Florida, Mr. GOLDMAN of New York, Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia, Mr. 
CASTEN, Ms. SEWELL, Mr. EVANS of Pennsylvania, Ms. LEE of Pennsyl-
vania, Mr. HUFFMAN, Ms. KELLY of Illinois, Ms. DELBENE, Mr. CAR-
SON, Mr. GARAMENDI, Mrs. RAMIREZ, Mr. SWALWELL, Mr. LIEU, Mr. 
COHEN, Mr. PETERS, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Ms. 
STANSBURY, Mrs. MCIVER, Ms. SALINAS, Ms. MCCOLLUM, Mr. KEN-
NEDY of New York, Ms. TLAIB, Mr. KRISHNAMOORTHI, Mr. VARGAS, Ms. 
NORTON, Mr. SOTO, Ms. BROWNLEY, Ms. ESCOBAR, Mr. GARCI´A of Illi-
nois, Mr. MCGOVERN, Mr. VEASEY, Mr. SCHNEIDER, Ms. TITUS, Ms. 
DEAN of Pennsylvania, Ms. CLARKE of New York, Mr. DELUZIO, Mr. 
POCAN, Mr. KHANNA, Mr. CISNEROS, Mrs. FOUSHEE, Mr. BELL, Ms. 
KAMLAGER-DOVE, Ms. CRAIG, Mr. NADLER, Mr. GARCIA of California, 
Ms. BUDZINSKI, Mrs. MCCLAIN DELANEY, Ms. GARCIA of Texas, Ms. 
ANSARI, Mrs. CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK, Ms. PETTERSEN, Ms. LOFGREN, 
Mr. LATIMER, Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN, Ms. OMAR, Ms. BROWN, Mr. 
TAKANO, Mr. MORELLE, Ms. STRICKLAND, Ms. MCBRIDE, Mrs. BEATTY, 
Ms. CASTOR of Florida, Ms. RANDALL, Mr. MAGAZINER, Mrs. TORRES 
of California, Mr. FROST, Ms. DEGETTE, Ms. JAYAPAL, Mr. 
DESAULNIER, Mr. GREEN of Texas, Mr. GOTTHEIMER, Mrs. TRAHAN, 
Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin, Mr. MULLIN, Mrs. FLETCHER, Ms. MORRISON, 
Ms. DAVIDS of Kansas, Mr. CARBAJAL, Ms. BALINT, Mr. TONKO, Mr. 
MENENDEZ, Ms. STEVENS, Ms. ROSS, Mr. MOULTON, Mr. THOMPSON of 
California, Ms. SCANLON, Ms. DEXTER, Mr. HORSFORD, Ms. DELAURO, 
Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ, Mr. CLEAVER, Mrs. MCBATH, Mr. BERA, Mr. 
WALKINSHAW, Mr. DAVIS of Illinois, Ms. JACOBS, Ms. MATSUI, Mr. 
OLSZEWSKI, and Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ) submitted the following con-
current resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, 
and in addition to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for a period 
to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consider-
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
00:44 Dec 12, 2025
Jkt 069200
PO 00000
Frm 00001
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6652
E:\BILLS\HC65.IH
HC65
kjohnson on DSK7ZCZBW3PROD with $$_JOB
•HCON 65 IH 
ation of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee 
concerned 
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 
Commending State and local governments for championing 
reproductive rights as human rights. 
Whereas, on June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme 
Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organiza-
tion, (597 U.S. 215 (2022)) overturned Roe v. Wade, 
(410 U.S. 113 (1973)) and Planned Parenthood v. 
Casey, (505 U.S. 833 (1992)), and eliminated the Fed-
eral constitutional right to abortion in the United States; 
Whereas, subsequently, more than a dozen States have 
passed legal barriers that fully ban abortion, and many 
others have passed legal barriers that severely restrict 
abortion, making abortion inaccessible in half of all 
States in the United States; 
Whereas the retrogression on abortion rights in the United 
States is inconsistent with the United States obligations 
under international human rights law; 
Whereas treaties ratified by the United States should be 
upheld at the Federal, State, and local levels as they are 
considered the ‘‘supreme Law of the Land’’ under clause 
2 of article VI of the United States Constitution; 
Whereas the United States has ratified, and is bound by, the 
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 
done on June 1, 1992, the International Convention on 
the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 
done on September 29, 1994, and the Convention against 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
00:44 Dec 12, 2025
Jkt 069200
PO 00000
Frm 00002
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HC65.IH
HC65
kjohnson on DSK7ZCZBW3PROD with $$_JOB
•HCON 65 IH 
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treat-
ment or Punishment, done on September 19, 1994; 
Whereas the United States has previously joined the inter-
national community in identifying reproductive rights as 
human rights, including during the 1995 Beijing World 
Conference on Women; 
Whereas escalating restrictions on abortion access in the 
United States conflict with public health guidance; 
Whereas the abortion care guideline, published by the World 
Health Organization in 2022, recommends the full de-
criminalization of abortion, the removal of grounds-based 
restrictions on abortion, and the removal of gestational 
age limits on the provision of abortion care; 
Whereas access to the full range of sexual and reproductive 
health care, including abortion, is essential to the health 
and well-being of all people; 
Whereas no one should be criminalized for any pregnancy, 
circumstances surrounding their pregnancy, or pregnancy 
outcome; 
Whereas punishing pregnant people for their pregnancy out-
comes and the circumstances of their pregnancies or for 
accessing essential reproductive and sexual health care 
violates their human rights; 
Whereas the threat of criminalization or prosecution can in-
timidate people from seeking or providing care; 
Whereas reproductive and sexual health care providers ad-
minister high-quality, essential health care, and play a 
critical role in ensuring people can make decisions about 
their bodies and lives with dignity; 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
00:44 Dec 12, 2025
Jkt 069200
PO 00000
Frm 00003
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HC65.IH
HC65
kjohnson on DSK7ZCZBW3PROD with $$_JOB
•HCON 65 IH 
Whereas no one should be criminalized for providing essential 
health care; 
Whereas pregnant people who have been denied abortion care 
suffer many adverse consequences, including putting their 
health, fertility, and lives at risk, being forced to carry 
pregnancies against their will and even nonviable preg-
nancies to term, and being criminalized for miscarriage, 
the circumstances of their pregnancies, abortions, and 
other pregnancy outcomes; 
Whereas pregnant people in Texas and other Southern States 
have been forced to undergo invasive and dangerous sur-
geries, such as cesarean sections, instead of receiving 
routine abortion care when faced with obstetric emer-
gencies, putting their health and lives at risk; 
Whereas such legally compelled interventions are obstetric vi-
olence, a form of gender-based violence which has long 
affected communities of color and especially Black com-
munities, as early American gynecology treated Black 
women as expendable clinical material for its institutional 
needs, and this medical violence was animated by biologi-
cal racism and the legal and economic exigencies of the 
antebellum era; 
Whereas all levels of government are obligated to prevent 
rather than empower discrimination and violence at the 
hands of the state; 
Whereas confusion and fear among health care providers on 
what is allowable under emergency medical exceptions 
has led to delays and denials of necessary lifesaving care, 
increasing health risks and preventable maternal deaths; 
Whereas research has shown an 8-percent increase in preg-
nancy-associated mortality, with the highest impact being 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
00:44 Dec 12, 2025
Jkt 069200
PO 00000
Frm 00004
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HC65.IH
HC65
kjohnson on DSK7ZCZBW3PROD with $$_JOB
•HCON 65 IH 
felt amongst Black women, who already face a higher 
rate of baseline mortality; 
Whereas pregnant people in States that ban abortion, like 
Texas and Louisiana, are twice as likely to die during 
pregnancy or childbirth; 
Whereas, in Texas, after the State’s ban went into effect, 
hospitals experienced a 50-percent increase in sepsis 
rates during second-trimester hospitalizations; 
Whereas, in 2024, over 155,000 patients were forced to travel 
out of State to seek abortion care, and between 2020 and 
the first half of 2023, the number of people traveling out 
of State for care jumped from 1 in 10 to 1 in 5; 
Whereas, because large swaths of the country have restrictive 
policies, thousands of people have had to travel hundreds 
of miles to access care; 
Whereas millions more cannot and will not be able to travel 
to access abortion care because of financial and travel-re-
lated barriers, their immigration status and risk of depor-
tation, or because they are incarcerated or on probation 
or parole; 
Whereas young persons under 18 face additional and often 
insurmountable barriers to accessing abortion, such as 
abortion bans, laws that force them to notify or seek con-
sent of a guardian even when that might pose a threat 
to their safety, and laws that criminalize adults who help 
them leave these State for an abortion; 
Whereas these barriers force countless young persons under 
18 into unwanted pregnancies or unsafe situations, par-
ticularly those from abusive or unsupportive families, 
harms that are compounded for LGBTQIA+ youth, 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
00:44 Dec 12, 2025
Jkt 069200
PO 00000
Frm 00005
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HC65.IH
HC65
kjohnson on DSK7ZCZBW3PROD with $$_JOB
•HCON 65 IH 
young people of color, and those without financial or 
travel resources; 
Whereas Indigenous people, Black people, people of color, 
people with low incomes, people living in rural areas, peo-
ple with disabilities, immigrants, LGBTQIA+ individ-
uals, and other marginalized individuals are dispropor-
tionately likely to be surveilled, arrested, charged, pros-
ecuted, convicted, and heavily punished within the United 
States criminal justice system and, due to systemic dis-
crimination, to experience additional scrutiny from the 
United States legal system; 
Whereas, from 2006 to 2022, almost 1,400 people were ar-
rested in the United States in relation to the cir-
cumstances or outcomes of their pregnancy, including 
pregnancy loss, and prosecutions overwhelmingly targeted 
people with low incomes, and this trend has only in-
creased since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Or-
ganization decision; 
Whereas, in the first 2 years since the Dobbs v. Jackson 
Women’s Health Organization decision, State prosecutors 
have initiated at least 412 cases charging pregnant peo-
ple with crimes related to pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or 
birth, and more than three-quarters of the people charged 
were low-income individuals, and in 264 of these cases, 
information supporting criminal prosecution was obtained 
or disclosed in a medical setting; 
Whereas many pregnant people experiencing miscarriage have 
been forced to wait until they are septic before receiving 
treatment or denied treatment altogether, even when the 
pregnancy is no longer viable; 
VerDate Sep 11 2014 
00:44 Dec 12, 2025
Jkt 069200
PO 00000
Frm 00006
Fmt 6652
Sfmt 6300
E:\BILLS\HC65.IH
HC65
kjohnson on DSK7ZCZBW3PROD with $$_JOB