Tim Kaine: “I rise to offer my own thoughts on the Dobbs decision that the Supreme Court rendered a couple of weeks back right after…”

“I rise to offer my own thoughts on the Dobbs decision that the Supreme Court rendered a couple of weeks back right after we went into a July Fourth recess. My colleagues were on the floor earlier advocating for a bill that would go after the pernicious practice of States in trying to penalize women from traveling to seek reproductive healthcare. I am a strong supporter of that legislation. I understand it will be proposed for floor action later today. I wanted to focus on two particular elements of the Dobbs decision that, as a former civil rights lawyer, struck me very, very deeply. Never in my life--I am 64 years old--has the Supreme Court taken away constitutional rights that had been counted on by generations of Americans. The Court has narrowed rights, redefined rights, articulated new standards for judging rights, but they have not taken rights away. In this instance, the Supreme Court took away rights that had been established in both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. They took away those rights for women to make reproductive healthcare decisions and ruled that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution--which protects citizens' ability to enjoy privileges and immunities of other States and persons' abilities to be treated equally under the law and not have life, liberty, or property--be taken from them without due process. The Court ruled that the 14th Amendment, the Constitution, had nothing to do with women's reproductive rights.…”