Amy Klobuchar: “I rise in support of the Right to Contraception Act. I would like to thank Senators Markey, Hirono, Murray, and…”

“I rise in support of the Right to Contraception Act. I would like to thank Senators Markey, Hirono, Murray, and Duckworth for their leadership on this bill. Senator Hirono is here. Senator Cantwell is also with us, who has been such a strong supporter of this bill. We are at a pivotal moment for women's rights in this country. This month marks 2 years since the Supreme Court issued the ruling shredding half a century of precedent protecting a woman's right to make her own healthcare decisions. This ruling was against the wishes of somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of Americans, who believe that a woman's most personal decisions about her healthcare should be made not by politicians but by a woman, her doctor, her family. In the wake of this disastrous ruling, women have been at the mercy of a patchwork of State laws that are creating chaos when it comes to accessing reproductive health care. Since the Dobbs decision came out, extremist judges have attempted to ban mifepristone, undermine IVF, and even criminalize doctors. Legislatures have introduced bills to criminalize doctors for simply doing their jobs. Twenty-one States have fully or partially banned abortion, and the number of U.S. patients traveling to other States for abortion care has skyrocketed to one in five. This is unacceptable. My daughter should not have fewer rights than her mother or her grandmother. So what is next? Well, what we must do is to codify Roe v.…”