***WATCH: Video of full forum***
***WATCH and READ: Senator Murray’s opening remarks***
Washington, D.C. — Today — ahead of the four-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning the constitutional right to abortion—U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) hosted a spotlight forum titled Post Dobbs Chaos: Republicans’ War on Reproductive Health Care. At the forum, Senate Democrats heard from panelists who have suffered the consequences of the Dobbs decision and subsequent Republican abortion bans firsthand. They discussed how the Trump administration and Republicans are sowing chaos for women and health care providers across the country through ongoing attacks on reproductive rights and women’s health care, alongside escalating efforts to enact a nationwide abortion ban.
“The Dobbs decision was just the beginning of Republicans’ war on women’s reproductive rights—their goal has always been a national abortion ban. Republicans are hoping we don’t notice, but from trying to get mifepristone classified as a water contaminant to defunding Planned Parenthood, we can see clear as day that Republicans are working to enact a national abortion ban,” said Senator Murray. “Republicans have already caused enormous damage, shuttering women’s health clinics across the country, forcing women to carry dangerous pregnancies to term, and decimating access to maternal health care. But Democrats will continue to push for legislation to protect women and health care providers. That’s why we are uplifting the stories of women across the country who have suffered from Republicans’ abortion bans and the providers who are trying their best to care for them. We will keep fighting to restore the right to abortion for every woman in all 50 states.”
The senators’ spotlight forum comes after more than a year of Republican trifecta control of government, during which the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have repeatedly attacked the reproductive health care American women depend on, creating widespread disruption and turmoil for patients and providers alike. Last year, Republicans in Congress pushed through their Big Ugly Bill that defunded Planned Parenthood and is kicking millions of Americans off Medicaid. Last year, the Trump administration withheld millions in Title X funding, putting more than 840,000 people at risk of losing access to family planning and preventive health care. This year, the administration further destabilized the Title X program by delaying the standard application process for new grants.
Throughout 2025 and into 2026, Republicans intensified their campaign to eliminate access to mifepristone—an FDA-approved abortion medication—through sham hearings, politically motivated reviews, conspiracy theories, attempts to weaponize environmental laws, and by continued efforts to secure abortion restrictions through the courts. More recently, the Trump Department of Justice announced, and later walked back, a $1.7 billion slush fund that could compensate anti-abortion extremists convicted of assaulting abortion clinic staff and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act—notably, despite widespread bipartisan condemnation, Trump refuses to rule out establishment of the fund. At the same time, the Trump administration has abandoned enforcement of the FACE Act, further emboldening those who threaten patients, providers, and access to reproductive health care.
“At my 20-week scan, I received the devastating news of my life, our daughter had anencephaly. Her brain and skull would never fully develop. Nothing could save her. She was 100% incompatible with life. She was going to die. The only question was, when, and whether she would die inside my body, before I knew it, putting my own life at risk. I thought for sure that I would be granted an ‘exception.’ I thought my doctors could show Halo and I compassion. I was wrong. When I asked what my options were, I was told I didn’t have any. Because Texas has an abortion ban. The one person I trusted with my life, my doctor, my healthcare provider, had her hands tied by the State. Helping me could have sent her to jail. … I had no rights to my own body. I was a vessel for the state,” Samantha Casiano, former plaintiff, Zurawski v. State of Texas, said during her testimony. “My daughter, Halo, lived a few agonizing hours before she passed away. While she was still here, her eyes started to bleed. She was like a fish pulled from water gasping for air. She changed colors in front of us, pink, red, blue, purple, until she was gone. That trauma is permanently imprinted in my memory. Because under Texas’s cruel abortion ban, I was forced to give birth to a baby every doctor knew would not survive, and then walk out of that hospital as if nothing happened, like she was never here. It was like sending my child into a war we all knew she would lose. It was cruel. It was inhumane. … Many women do not know this is happening to them until it happens. Right now, as we sit here there is a woman out there reliving my nightmare. I want her to know she is not alone. I see you. I hear you. I stand with you. … I will give my last breath as Halo did to make sure that happens.”
“We found out our baby had a lethal genetic anomaly affecting bone development. Soon my baby’s bones would begin to break in utero at my slightest movement — like bending down to pick up my three-year-old son. At birth, their rib cage would be too small to support lung function. We were told our baby would suffocate at their first breath without immediate extreme medical intervention. This diagnosis came 25 days after Texas’s extreme heartbeat bill, SB8, went into effect. … At the end of the appointment, I was handed a printout of my own medical records with the advice to seek a second opinion — outside of Texas,” Kaitlyn Kash, former plaintiff, Zurawski v. State of Texas, said during her testimony. “A few months later I was pregnant again, but my third and fourth pregnancies ended in miscarriage. I needed medication — the same medication used in medical abortions — to help my body pass the fetal tissue and prevent infection that could jeopardize my future fertility. Because of the fear and confusion surrounding these laws, my prescription was challenged. I was treated like an addict looking for drugs instead of a mother losing her child — navigating a broken, frightened healthcare system while actively bleeding, while grieving, until I was finally able to obtain it through an online pharmacy. My husband and I then chose IVF. Eleven months later, we finally welcomed our second child — the result of my fourth pregnancy in less than two years. As I lay there holding my baby on my chest, I thought — we made it. That feeling was short-lived. My placenta wasn’t delivering. I needed a D&C — a procedure used to clear tissue from the uterus, and yes, also used in abortions. My doctor said it needed to happen quickly. … Fifty minutes after my daughter’s birth, I started violently throwing up and shaking. … I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was told I had lost half my blood volume. I was told I was ‘lucky’ I still had my uterus. … I wish I could tell you I have bad luck. I would love for my story to be a lightning strike. But it’s not. Every part of what happened to me happens to families across this country every single day. … You do not get to know the healthcare you need until you need it. You can be against abortion for yourself. You can never choose it. But you cannot restrict access to a category of medical care without consequences that reach every pregnant person in this country. Every woman you have ever loved — your daughters, your sisters, your nieces, your granddaughters. These bans force unimaginable pain and push hundreds of thousands of women into impossible situations they never saw coming. Trust me. I never imagined it either.”
“Four years after Dobbs, we are still dealing with a massive public health crisis. People still need abortions. They are still getting abortions. The difference is that they now have to travel farther, wait longer, spend more money, and overcome more obstacles to obtain the same healthcare. Those costs do not disappear. They are absorbed by patients, families, providers, and abortion funds,” Megan Jeyifo, Executive Director, Chicago Abortion Fund, said during her testimony. “The total spent on abortion funding has tripled since Dobbs, from just over $16 million to more than $48 million. Every day, we hear from people trying to make thoughtful decisions about whether to start or grow their families while navigating rising costs, unstable housing, inadequate childcare, and shrinking social safety nets. Federal and state policy decisions shape those realities. For many of the people we serve, the decision to have an abortion is inseparable from the economic conditions in which they are raising children and planning their futures. … Many of the women who built this movement have told me they never imagined their children and grandchildren would come of age with fewer abortion rights than the ones they themselves fought to secure. Four years into a new post-Roe era, I cannot pretend things are not sometimes very dark. When we spent a weekend just last month wondering whether access to medication abortion through telehealth and the mail might be dramatically curtailed for millions of people across the country, that was hard. And we know that fight—and others like it—are still coming.”
“Maine is one of the most rural states in the nation, with 40% of its population living in rural communities where access to healthcare can be difficult and, in some cases, out of reach. Indeed, in many of Maine’s rural communities, access to reproductive healthcare has effectively disappeared. A severe shortage of family planning and reproductive health providers, combined with the closure of hospital labor and delivery units across the state, has left many patients with few or no local options for care. As OB/GYN providers have left these regions, existing gaps in care have only deepened in my state,” said Evelyn Kieltyka, Senior Vice President of Program Services, Maine Family Planning. “Maine Family Planning tried to meet the state’s health care crisis head-on by expanding into primary care and offering wellness and preventive services, treatment for acute and chronic conditions, and geriatric care. However, because our primary care model was designed to serve Medicaid patients, we were forced to discontinue these services after we lost Medicaid funding. … Maine is facing a significant shortage of labor and delivery services. Since 2015, 12 rural hospitals have closed their labor and delivery units, and another closure is under consideration this year. To help address this gap, MFP was exploring collaborations with the remaining birthing centers to provide prenatal and postpartum care. These partnerships could have saved patients hundreds of miles of travel, as well as lost wages and childcare expenses. However, without Medicaid funding, MFP cannot consider this type of expansion. … MFP is sending a clear message to the current administration: We refuse to compromise the services and care we offer to our patients. Our clinics offer life-changing care, life-saving care, and we’re not giving up. Congress has the power to restore Medicaid funding to family planning providers who also offer abortion care. I ask that you do everything in your power to do so. The health and well-being of Mainers and their families, as well as that of patients across the country, depends on it.”
“Across the country, around 550 Planned Parenthood health centers provide birth control, cancer screenings, wellness exams, STI testing and treatment, and abortion, where legal. Planned Parenthood health centers see everyone — no matter who you are, where you live, or what problems you’re facing. In many communities, they’re the only providers of reproductive health care. … This week marks four years since the Dobbs decision. It also marks nearly one year since President Trump and Republicans in Congress ‘defunded’ Planned Parenthood by aiming to block most Medicaid patients from using their insurance at Planned Parenthood health centers. These things didn’t happen by accident. They are part of the anti-abortion movement’s coordinated, decades-long plan to make it harder for everyone, everywhere to get an abortion. And the consequences have been devastating,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “Last November, visits for birth control pills were down by 20 percent compared to the same period the previous year. STI testing declined by 11 percent. And in December, breast exam visits declined by 25 percent. That means cancers undetected and STIs untreated. Patients unable to plan for their families and their futures. This crisis is on top of the crisis caused by the Dobbs decision. 20 states now ban abortion. And bans do not stop abortion — they add burdens to those seeking them and those providing them. These cowards are continuing to push their agenda regardless of the human cost. … Planned Parenthood organizations are staying vigilant against this threat — along with threats to mifepristone, Title X, and more.”
“Today is a grim anniversary for America, marking four years since Trump’s MAGA Supreme Court stole women’s rights to control their own bodies,” said Leader Schumer. “Dobbs will go down as one of the worst, most devastating decisions in American history—but for Republicans, it was just the start of their all-out assault on reproductive freedom. Women seeking basic health care are being treated as criminals, doctors are being threatened with jail time for providing it, and families are being destroyed by Republicans who don’t trust women to make the decisions that are right for them and their families. This isn’t care; it’s control. Not protection, but punishment. Republicans created this health care crisis, and they made it worse a year ago when they passed their ‘Big, Ugly Bill’ and enacted the largest health care cuts in history. Democrats are fighting back to restore and protect abortion rights nationwide.”
“It’s been four years since women lost their constitutionally protected right to abortion. Since then, Americans and their doctors have been forced to navigate a patchwork of bans and restrictions on abortion that have resulted in women bleeding out in parking lots, travelling across state lines for care, or being forced to wait weeks to terminate unviable pregnancies,” said Senator Baldwin. “27 million women still live in states under abortion bans and I remain committed to telling their stories until we can restore the rights and freedoms every American deserves to make their own decisions about their own body.”
“Republicans’ long crusade against women’s reproductive freedoms has created national chaos that is a mortal threat to women’s health. I’m grateful to the panelists today who are helping shine a light on the stories of women across this country who continue to be denied lifesaving medical care and basic human rights,” said Senator Smith. “The four-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision is a moment for us to recommit to the fight, and especially to the effort to ensure mifepristone remains accessible and available no matter where you live. I will not stop organizing and fighting until women’s freedoms can be exercised equally in all parts of this country.”
“Four years ago, the Supreme Court stripped Americans of the freedom to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions—putting that power in the hands of politicians. The Trump Administration and Republicans across the country are leading a campaign of assault against women’s healthcare, restricting access to critical, often life-saving care. We need action now—I remain committed to never stop fighting for reproductive justice, abortion access, and the simple, foundational right to choose your own healthcare,” said Senator Blumenthal.
“Four years after Dobbs, women are worse off. They are traveling farther, paying more, and facing greater barriers to care. Since Idaho imposed a restrictive abortion ban, more than one-third of the state’s OB-GYNs have left – and women are forced to seek care elsewhere. This strains care in states like Washington that have continued to protect abortion rights. I will continue fighting to restore abortion protections for patients and doctors nationwide,” said Senator Cantwell.
“We must keep working to pass legislation to protect women and their families in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade,” said Senator Cortez Masto. “That’s why I’ve introduced legislation with Senator Murray and others to protect women who cross state lines to get abortions, as well as the providers who care for them. I’m fighting to ensure Nevada and other pro-choice states can continue taking care of women and families who need help.”
“When Trump’s hand-picked Justices on the Supreme Court threw out our constitutional right to choose, they did more than ban abortion—they put women in danger,” said Senator Duckworth. “They crushed the dreams of hopeful parents—including our nation’s servicemembers and Veterans—who live in abortion-ban states and rely on IVF to build their families. They increased the maternal mortality rate because doctors are afraid to provide lifesaving care to pregnant women who are bleeding out or suffering deadly infections. There is simply nothing ‘pro-life’ about Trump ending Roe v. Wade. Nothing.”
“Four years ago, the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority abandoned the long-standing constitutional protections recognized in Roe v. Wade, dragging women’s rights half a century backward. The Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress and states across the country have used this as a mandate to attack reproductive freedoms at every level,” said Senator Durbin. “But the fight is far from over, and I will continue to push back against these harmful restrictions on women’s health care and autonomy.”
“Four years after the Supreme Court’s disastrous Dobbs decision, women across our country continue to suffer devastating consequences. From restricting lifesaving emergency care to forcing patients to travel across state lines for essential services, Republicans’ war on women and our bodily autonomy doesn’t just undermine the fundamental right to healthcare—it endangers millions of lives,” said Senator Hirono. “As the Trump regime continues to attack our basic rights and freedoms, I will do everything in my power to restore and expand access to abortion and family planning services nationwide, and fiercely protect healthcare providers and the patients they serve.”
“By stripping women of our hard-earned reproductive freedoms and jeopardizing access to life-saving health care, the Supreme Court’s outrageous Dobbs decision set back decades of hard-fought progress,” said Senator Shaheen. “Four years later, our fundamental rights are still under attack. The testimonies we heard at the forum are powerful reminders of what we’ve lost since the Dobbs decision and what continues to be at stake in the fight to restore access to the full range of reproductive health care.”
Senator Murray is a longtime leader in the fight to protect and expand access to reproductive health care and abortion rights, and she has led Congressional efforts to fight back after the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Murray has introduced more than a dozen pieces of legislation to protect reproductive rights from further attacks, protect providers, and help ensure women get the care they need; Murray has led efforts to push for passage of these bills on the Senate floor multiple times over the last four years.
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