[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 71 (Thursday, April 27, 2023)] [Senate] [Pages S1410-S1411] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Date: 2023-04-27
Chamber: SENATE
Mr. DURBIN: the decision last year by the Supreme Court's conservative majority overruling Roe v. Wade and the right to abortion marks the first time in our Nation's history that the Supreme Court has ever repealed a constitutional right. One of the most striking features of the Dobbs decision was the almost complete absence of any serious discussion about the impact the ruling might have on the lives and health of women. In a 79-page ruling, women receive only a few paragraphs. Justice Alito, the author of the majority opinion, defended this disregard for women's lives and health by arguing that it is ``hard for anyone--and in particular, for a court--to assess . . . the effect of the abortion right on society and in particular on the lives of women.'' Perhaps the Court's conservative majority should have paid closer attention to amicus briefs filed by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association, who warned that overruling Roe would unleash an immediate healthcare crisis across America. Ten months later, it is clear for anyone to see that the consequences of the Dobbs ruling are devastating. Instead of settling old controversies, the Dobbs decision has unleashed chaos for women and doctors. We are seeing a torrent of new State laws that aim to reduce abortion access by threatening to punish or criminalize those who provide abortions and, in some cases, those who help someone to obtain an abortion. Nearly half of all States now impose severe restrictions on abortion--and at least a dozen States have enacted near-total bans. The laws surrounding abortion--and miscarriage management--seem to be changing by the week. A few weeks ago, a Federal judge in Texas issued a ruling that would ban the sale of mifepristone, one of the safest forms of reproductive care, nationwide--even in States where abortion remains legal. Mifepristone was approved more than 20 years ago by the Food and Drug Administration as safe and effective. It is used in more than half of all abortions in the country. And it is used to help women suffering from a miscarriage. It has a better safety profile than penicillin, Tylenol, or Viagra. Thankfully, the Supreme Court issued a temporary reprieve by staying the decision. So, for the moment, mifepristone remains on the market while the case works its way through the legal system. But the initial ruling by the Federal judge in Texas marked the first time that a judge has ever overruled the FDA to ban a medication deemed safe and effective by medical and scientific experts. And it is troubling confirmation that instead of ending the debate on abortion, Dobbs was actually the beginning of a different debate: How far will the war on women's healthcare go before we say enough is enough? The number of horror stories that have emerged over the past year is staggering: stories of rape victims--as young as 10 years old--being denied healthcare because of laws outlawing abortion; an 11-year-old victim of sex trafficking--also denied a medically necessary abortion; stories of women being forced to flee their home States to access basic, reproductive care services; stories of pregnant women suffering miscarriages being turned away by doctors, until their lives are at risk, because healthcare providers are understandably afraid of facing criminal penalties and other serious punishments if their patient is not sick enough to receive abortion care. Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chair, held a hearing in which we heard more about the horrific consequences of the Dobbs decision on pregnant women and the doctors who care for them. Let me tell you about one of our witnesses. Her name is Amanda Zurawski. She was one of the most profound and heartbreaking witnesses I have heard during my time in Congress. Amanda lives in Texas, one of the first States in which a near-total ban on abortion took effect after Dobbs. Amanda endured 18 months of fertility treatments to get pregnant. When she finally did, she and her husband were over the moon. They named their soon-to-be little girl Willow. Last August, in the second trimester of her pregnancy, Amanda felt something unusual. She called her doctor, who told her to come in as quickly as possible. After an examination, Amanda and her husband received a heartbreaking diagnosis: Her cervix had dilated prematurely. The loss of her baby was inevitable. Amanda asked what could be done to assure what she called ``the respectful passing'' of her baby and to protect Amanda from a possibly deadly infection. To her shock, her doctors told her there was nothing they could do because of Texas's new anti-abortion laws--laws that threaten doctors with fines of up to $100,000, up to 99 years in prison, and loss of their medical license. Amanda's doctors tried to find another hospital nearby that could possibly help her--but those hospitals all had the same response: Because of Texas's new laws, they couldn't do anything. Amanda told our committee: ``People have asked why we didn't get on a plane or in our car to go to a state where the laws aren't so restrictive. But we live in the middle of Texas, and the nearest `sanctuary' state is at least an eight-hour drive. Developing sepsis-- which can kill quickly--in a car in the middle of the West Texas desert, or 30,000 feet above the ground, is a death sentence, and it's not a choice we should have had to even consider. So all we could do was wait.'' After 3 agonizing days, Amanda developed a raging fever and dangerously low blood pressure. Sepsis had set in. Her husband rushed her to the hospital. Several hours later, her daughter arrived, stillborn. Amanda spent the next 3 days in the I.C.U. fighting for her own life. She has spent the last 8 months battling trauma and depression, as well as the medical fallout from her delayed treatment, including complications that may make it difficult to ever have children. We also heard from an OB/GYN, Dr. Nisha Verma, who has chosen to stay and practice in Georgia despite knowing that, in her words, ``Georgia's law threatened to make [her] a criminal for providing life-saving care to [her] patients.'' Dr. Verma told our committee : ``Imagine looking someone in the eye and saying: `I have all the skills and the tools to care for you, but our state's politicians have told me I can't.''' She reminded us that the U.S. already has the highest maternal mortality rate of any wealthy nation. Restrictive abortion laws, she said, are making pregnancy even more dangerous for women. Regrettably, some of our Republican colleagues on the committee tried to make the hearing about what they called late-term abortions and other abortion foes call ``partial birth'' abortions--both medically inaccurate terms. They neglected to note that abortions after 21 weeks account for less than 1 percent of abortions in this country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They also failed to acknowledge that in the very rare instances when an abortion happens later in a pregnancy, it is generally because the woman's life is in danger; a fatal fetal anomaly has been discovered, as in Amanda's case; or because a woman wasn't able to get an abortion earlier due to restrictive laws. For nearly 50 years, abortion opponents said their only goal was to return the right to decide abortion laws to the State. It is now clear that was a trojan horse. Dismantling Roe was the first step. The real goal is to systemically strip away access to abortion nationwide. And that is exactly what they are doing. Last year, dozens of congressional Republicans proposed a bill that would ban abortion nationwide at 15 weeks--even in States that have chosen to protect access to abortion later in pregnancy. And one member of our committee noted yesterday: ``We're not going to back off.'' In addition, nearly 150 congressional Republicans joined an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the mifepristone case, arguing for the Court to keep in place the Fifth Circuit's stay that limited mifepristone access nationwide--even in States where abortion remains legal.  Congress needs to stop this chaos and needless, avoidable suffering by passing the Women's Health Protection Act to restore abortion access across the country.