I 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 1322 
To protect a woman’s right and ability to determine whether and when 
to bear a child or end a pregnancy by limiting restrictions on the 
provision of abortion services. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 2, 2017 
Ms. JUDY CHU of California (for herself, Ms. ADAMS, Mr. AGUILAR, Mrs. 
BEATTY, Mr. BERA, Mr. BEYER, Mr. BLUMENAUER, Ms. BONAMICI, Mr. 
BRADY of Pennsylvania, Ms. BROWNLEY of California, Mrs. BUSTOS, Mr. 
CARBAJAL, Mr. CA´RDENAS, Mr. CICILLINE, Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts, 
Ms. CLARKE of New York, Mr. COHEN, Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois, 
Mr. DEFAZIO, Ms. DEGETTE, Ms. DELAURO, Mr. DEUTCH, Mr. DOG-
GETT, Mr. ELLISON, Mr. ENGEL, Mr. EVANS, Mr. FOSTER, Ms. 
FRANKEL of Florida, Ms. FUDGE, Mr. GALLEGO, Mr. GARAMENDI, Mr. 
GRIJALVA, Mr. GUTIE´RREZ, Ms. HANABUSA, Mr. HASTINGS, Mr. HECK, 
Mr. HIGGINS of New York, Mr. HIMES, Ms. NORTON, Mr. HUFFMAN, 
Ms. JACKSON LEE, Ms. JAYAPAL, Mr. KEATING, Ms. KELLY of Illinois, 
Mr. KENNEDY, Mr. KIHUEN, Mr. KILDEE, Mr. KRISHNAMOORTHI, Mr. 
LARSEN of Washington, Mrs. LAWRENCE, Ms. LEE, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. TED 
LIEU of California, Mr. LOWENTHAL, Ms. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM 
of New Mexico, Mr. SEAN PATRICK MALONEY of New York, Ms. MCCOL-
LUM, Ms. KUSTER of New Hampshire, Mr. MCNERNEY, Mr. MEEKS, Mr. 
MOULTON, Mr. NADLER, Mrs. NAPOLITANO, Mr. NORCROSS, Mr. 
O’ROURKE, Mr. PAYNE, Mr. PETERS, Ms. PINGREE, Mr. POCAN, Mr. 
PRICE of North Carolina, Mr. QUIGLEY, Miss RICE of New York, Mr. 
RICHMOND, Ms. ROSEN, Mr. RUSH, Mr. RYAN of Ohio, Ms. SA´NCHEZ, 
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. SCHIFF, Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia, Mr. 
SERRANO, Ms. SINEMA, Ms. SLAUGHTER, Mr. SMITH of Washington, Mr. 
SOTO, Ms. SPEIER, Mr. TAKANO, Ms. TITUS, Mr. TONKO, Mrs. TORRES, 
Ms. TSONGAS, Mr. VARGAS, Mr. VEASEY, Ms. VELA´ZQUEZ, Mr. WALZ, 
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN, Mr. WELCH, Mr. 
YARMUTH, Ms. DELBENE, Mr. CONNOLLY, and Mrs. DAVIS of Cali-
fornia) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee 
on Energy and Commerce 
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A BILL 
To protect a woman’s right and ability to determine whether 
and when to bear a child or end a pregnancy by limiting 
restrictions on the provision of 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 2017’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE. 
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 
(1) Access to safe, legal abortion services is es-
sential to women’s health and central to women’s 
ability to participate equally in the economic and so-
cial life of the United States. 
(2) Access to safe, legal abortion services has 
been hindered in the United States in various ways, 
including blockades of health care facilities and asso-
ciated violence; restrictions on insurance coverage; 
restrictions on minors’ ability to obtain services; and 
unnecessary health regulations that single out abor-
tion providers and those seeking their services, and 
which do not confer any health benefit or further the 
safety of abortion, but harm women by reducing the 
availability of services. 
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(3) In the early 1990s, protests and blockades 
at health care facilities where abortions were per-
formed, and associated violence, increased dramati-
cally and reached crisis level, requiring Congres-
sional action. Congress passed the Freedom of Ac-
cess to Clinic Entrances Act (Public Law 103–259) 
to address that situation and ensure that women 
could physically access abortion services. 
(4) Since 2010, there has been an equally dra-
matic increase in the number of laws and regulations 
singling out abortion that threaten women’s health 
and burden their access to safe abortion services by 
interfering with health care professionals’ ability to 
provide such services. The Supreme Court’s decision 
in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (579 U.S. 
lll (2016)), reaffirmed the constitutional right 
to abortion and struck down two unnecessary health 
regulations that created undue burdens upon access 
to abortion. Congressional action is necessary to put 
an end to these types of harmful restrictions. In ad-
dition, there has been a dramatic increase in the 
passage of laws that blatantly violate the constitu-
tional protections afforded women, such as bans on 
abortion prior to viability. 
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(5) Legal abortion is one of the safest medical 
procedures in the United States, safer than numer-
ous procedures that take place outside of hospitals, 
as noted by the Supreme Court in Whole Woman’s 
Health. That safety is furthered by regulations that 
are based on medical science and are generally appli-
cable to the medical profession or to medically com-
parable procedures. 
(6) Many State and local governments are im-
posing restrictions on the provision of abortion that 
are neither evidence-based nor generally applicable 
to the medical profession or to medically comparable 
procedures. Though described by their proponents as 
health and safety regulations, many of these abor-
tion-specific restrictions do not confer any health 
benefit. Also, these restrictions interfere with wom-
en’s personal and private medical decisions, make 
access to abortion more difficult and costly, and 
even make it impossible for some women to obtain 
those services. 
(7) These restrictions harm women’s health by 
reducing access not only to abortion services but also 
to the other essential health care services offered by 
the providers targeted by the restrictions, including 
contraceptive services, which reduce unintended 
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pregnancies and thus abortions, and screenings for 
cervical cancer and sexually transmitted infections. 
These harms fall especially heavily on low-income 
women, women of color, immigrants, and women liv-
ing in rural and other medically underserved areas. 
(8) The cumulative effect of these numerous re-
strictions has been to make a woman’s ability to ex-
ercise her constitutional rights dependent on the 
State in which she lives. Federal legislation putting 
a stop to harmful restrictions throughout the United 
States is necessary to ensure that women in all 
States have meaningful access to safe abortion serv-
ices, a constitutional right repeatedly affirmed by 
the United States Supreme Court, most recently in 
2016. 
(9) Congress has the authority to protect wom-
en’s ability to access abortion services pursuant to 
its powers under the Commerce Clause and its pow-
ers under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to 
the Constitution to enforce the provisions of section 
1 of the Fourteenth Amendment. 
(b) PURPOSE.—It is the purpose of this Act to pro-
tect women’s health by ensuring that abortion services will 
continue to be available and that abortion providers are 
not singled out for medically unnecessary restrictions that 
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burden women by preventing them from accessing safe 
abortion services. It is not the purpose of this Act to ad-
dress all obstacles in the path of women who seek access 
to abortion (for example, this Act does not apply to clinic 
violence, restrictions on insurance or medical assistance 
coverage of abortion, or requirements for parental consent 
or notification before a minor may obtain an abortion) 
which Congress should address through separate legisla-
tion as appropriate. 
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. 
In this Act: 
(1) ABORTION.—The term ‘‘abortion’’ means 
any medical treatment, including the prescription of 
medication, intended to cause the termination of a 
pregnancy except for the purpose of increasing the 
probability of a live birth, to remove an ectopic preg-
nancy, or to remove a dead fetus. 
(2) ABORTION PROVIDER.—The term ‘‘abortion 
provider’’ means a health care professional who per-
forms abortions. 
(3) GOVERNMENT.—The term ‘‘government’’ 
includes a branch, department, agency, instrumen-
tality, or individual acting under color of law of the 
United States, a State, or a subdivision of a State. 
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(4) HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL.—The term 
‘‘health care professional’’ means a licensed medical 
professional (including physicians, certified nurse- 
midwives, nurse practitioners, and physician assist-
ants) who is competent to perform abortions based 
on clinical training. 
(5) MEDICALLY COMPARABLE PROCEDURES.— 
The term ‘‘medically comparable procedures’’ means 
medical procedures that are similar in terms of risk, 
complexity, duration, or the degree of sterile pre-
caution that is indicated. 
(6) PREGNANCY.—The term ‘‘pregnancy’’ refers 
to the period of the human reproductive process be-
ginning with the implantation of a fertilized egg. 
(7) STATE.—The term ‘‘State’’ includes each of 
the 50 States, the District of Columbia, the Com-
monwealth of Puerto Rico, and each territory or pos-
session of the United States. 
(8) VIABILITY.—The term ‘‘viability’’ means 
the point in a pregnancy at which, in the good-faith 
medical judgment of the treating health care profes-
sional, based on the particular facts of the case be-
fore her or him, there is a reasonable likelihood of 
sustained fetal survival outside the uterus with or 
without artificial support. 
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SEC. 4. PROHIBITED MEASURES AND ACTIONS. 
(a) GENERAL PROHIBITIONS.—The following limita-
tions or requirements are unlawful and shall not be im-
posed or applied by any government because they single 
out the provision of abortion services for restrictions that 
are more burdensome than those restrictions imposed on 
medically comparable procedures, they do not significantly 
advance women’s health or the safety of abortion services, 
and they make abortion services more difficult to access: 
(1) A requirement that a medical professional 
perform specific tests or medical procedures in con-
nection with the provision of an abortion, unless 
generally required for the provision of medically 
comparable procedures. 
(2) A requirement that the same clinician who 
performs a patient’s abortion also perform specified 
tests, services or procedures prior to or subsequent 
to the abortion. 
(3) A limitation on an abortion provider’s abil-
ity to prescribe or dispense drugs based on current 
evidence-based regimens or her or his good-faith 
medical judgment, other than a limitation generally 
applicable to the medical profession. 
(4) A limitation on an abortion provider’s abil-
ity to provide abortion services via telemedicine, 
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