***WATCH: Senator Murray’s opening remarks***
Washington, D.C. – Today, on the three-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) and Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, delivered the following opening remarks at a spotlight forum she hosted for Senate Democrats titled Under Attack: Republicans’ Escalating War on Reproductive Freedom. The forum was co-led by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Tina Smith (D-MN).
In her remarks, Senator Murray highlighted the many ways President Trump and Republicans are attacking abortion access and reproductive health care right now and laid bare the Republican strategy to implement a backdoor nationwide abortion ban by ultimately making abortion impossible to access for everyone, everywhere—including in states where abortion remains legal.
Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below:
“I want to thank all of our panelists who are here to share your stories and your expertise.
“As I said, it has been three years since Trump and Republicans succeeded in overturning Roe, ripping away a Constitutional right for the first time in American history, and causing a full-blown health care crisis in our nation.
“Already, we have seen with painful clarity, how—on a daily basis—Republican abortion bans are putting women’s lives in danger, forcing providers to close their doors, decimating access to maternal health care, and forcing women to remain pregnant, no matter their personal circumstance.
“Dobbs was never the end of this fight for Republicans, we all need to know that, their goal has always been a national abortion ban.
“And since Republicans know they do not have the votes right now to pass a national abortion ban outright, they are slowly, but surely, advancing a backdoor nationwide abortion ban, and chipping away at access to reproductive health piece-by-piece—even in states where abortion is protected.
“Republicans are hoping no one will notice these attacks—as if people don’t care when their rights are stripped away. As if it’s easy to miss the moment your health care decisions are out of your control. As if someone forced to stay pregnant because of Republican bans might just forget about it.
“Well, we know what Republicans are doing, and we are putting their tactics on full blast.
“To start, just days into his presidency, Trump pardoned people en masse who blockaded abortion clinics and assaulted and injured clinic staff. And Trump’s Justice Department has made clear if anyone else wants to break the law and intimidate abortion clinics, they won’t do anything to stop it—except in the most extreme circumstances.
“Republicans are also attacking lifesaving abortion care for pregnant women who face a medical emergency. Earlier this month, the Trump Administration quietly revoked CMS guidance that made clear hospitals are required to provide emergency abortion care when it is necessary to save a patient’s life, as it can be in the case of hemorrhage or sepsis.
“Republicans are also attacking abortion medication. Trump’s FDA recently announced it will undertake a ‘comprehensive review’ of mifepristone. Why? Because of discredited junk science from the same anti-abortion activists who helped write Project 2025.
“And unfortunately, we know exactly where this is going: Trump ripping mifepristone off the shelves, reinstating unnecessary restrictions, banning telehealth prescriptions, and curtailing access in every single state. And that’s at a minimum. Many Republicans want to revoke the approval of mifepristone altogether.
“Meanwhile, Republicans have been sneaking so-called personhood language into Trump’s Executive Orders. Fetal personhood is an extreme ideology that would strip pregnant women of their rights and impose a complete and total ban on: abortion, on IVF, and even some forms of birth control. It does not get any more extreme than that.
“And you know Trump’s Big Betrayal Bill that Republicans are working around the clock to pass right now? That one that would strip 16 million people of their health care? The one that would shutter rural hospitals across the country? That includes even moreattacks on abortion—they just can’t help themselves.
“They are effectively barring ACA marketplace plans from covering abortion care—something that is actually required in many states, including my home state of Washington. Even worse, Republicans want to shut the doors of one of the largest health care providers in our country.
“Their bill would defund Planned Parenthood, putting 200 clinics across the country at risk of closure—90 percent of which are in states where abortion is legal.
“These are clinics that don’t just provide lifesaving abortion care, but they provide cancer screenings, birth control, and other essential health care services for over one million patients. Republicans will do just about anything they think they can do to get away to undermine abortion across this country.
“The one thing Republicans still refuse to do? Reckon with the consequence of their action.
“They really seem to think that if they don’t talk about the damage they are causing, the people they are hurting, the lives they are destroying—it doesn’t exist. It will somehow just go away. Big mistake.
“Republicans may be silent, but women across the country are speaking up about the suffering and heartbreak Republicans’ draconian anti-abortion policies are causing.
“Women are sharing their stories of being forced to carry a doomed pregnancy for months or being pushed to death’s door before their doctors could provide care without the threat of spending the rest of their lives in jail.
“And families are speaking up about the deaths—because, yes, these Republicans’ extreme policies have led to women dying. And it’s not just patients telling stories, it is cold hard data. In Texas, sepsis rates have rocketed over 50 percent since their abortion ban.
“And in state after state that banned abortion, health care providers are leaving town en masse. Because why stay, when doing your job—and saving a patient’s life—could land you in prison? As hard as Republicans might try, the damage they are causing is undeniable.
“But that does not mean that we give up. Women’s lives are at stake, Democrats are not going to stop pushing back—not ever.
“We will keep pushing for legislation to protect women and health care providers from Republican prosecution; to help people access and afford the reproductive health care that they need; to protect women’s private health data; to protect the Right to Contraception and the Right to IVF; and to restore the right to abortion nationwide—nothing less.
“We will keep fighting tooth and nail against every new strategy Republicans cook up to ban abortion and shutter the doors of health care providers in our country.
“And we will keep lifting up the heartbreaking stories of people who have experienced firsthand the cruelty of Republican policies; and shining a bright light and burning spotlight on how dangerous—and how deadly—these attacks on abortion truly are.”
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