I 
117TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 8296 
To protect a person’s ability to determine whether to continue or end a 
pregnancy, and to protect a health care provider’s ability to provide 
abortion services. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 7, 2022 
Ms. CHU (for herself, Ms. PRESSLEY, Ms. LOIS FRANKEL of Florida, and Ms. 
ESCOBAR) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Com-
mittee on Energy and Commerce 
A BILL 
To protect a person’s ability to determine whether to con-
tinue or end a pregnancy, and to protect a health care 
provider’s ability to provide abortion services. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Women’s Health Pro-
tection Act of 2022’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE. 
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 
(1) On June 24, 2022, in its decision in Dobbs 
v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Su-
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preme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, reversing dec-
ades of precedent recognizing the constitutional 
right to terminate a pregnancy before fetal viability, 
and to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability 
where it is necessary, in the good-faith medical judg-
ment of the treating health care professional, for the 
preservation of the life or health of the person who 
is pregnant. 
(2) In their joint dissent, Justices Breyer, 
Sotomayor, and Kagan write, ‘‘[The majority] says 
that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman 
has no rights to speak of. A State can force her to 
bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest per-
sonal and familial costs.’’. 
(3) The dissenting Justices continue, ‘‘The Mis-
sissippi law at issue here bars abortions after the 
15th week of pregnancy. Under the majority’s rul-
ing, though, another State’s law could do so after 
ten weeks, or five or three or one—or, again, from 
the moment of fertilization. States have already 
passed such laws, in anticipation of today’s ruling. 
More will follow.’’. 
(4) The dissenting Justices also stated, ‘‘one re-
sult of [the] decision is certain; the curtailment of 
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women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal 
citizens.’’. 
(5) Indeed, some States acted to ban abortion 
outright in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs 
decision, with half the States in the country expected 
to ban abortion entirely in the days and weeks to 
come. 
(6) Even before Roe was overturned, access to 
abortion services had been obstructed across the 
United States in various ways, including blockades 
of health care facilities and associated violence, pro-
hibitions of, and restrictions on, insurance coverage; 
parental involvement laws (notification and consent); 
restrictions that shame and stigmatize people seek-
ing abortion services; and medically unnecessary reg-
ulations that neither confer any health benefit nor 
further the safety of abortion services, but which 
harm people by delaying, complicating access to, and 
reducing the availability of, abortion services. 
(7) Abortion services are essential to health 
care, and access to those services is central to peo-
ple’s ability to participate equally in the economic 
and social life of the United States. Abortion access 
allows people who are pregnant to make their own 
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