Rep. Chellie Pingree (D) and Other House Dems Voted in Support of Federal Protections for Access to Abortion Nationwide.
Protestors Against the Anti Choice Governors Attending the National Governors Association Summer Meeting in Portland Yesterday.
A Sign Held by Caitlin Roberts. Who is a Remote Worker in Portland.
Yesterday House Democrats passed the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA) to codify the right to abortion access nationwide in wake of the recent US Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade according to a press release received yesterday from the office of Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D).
The WHPA would establish the federal right for health care providers to carry out an abortion and for patients to receive abortion care, free from medically unecessary and burdensome restrictions that single out abortion services as compared with other medical proceedings with similar risk. Congresswoman Pingree and the House passed another version of the WHPA in September, which was twice blocked in the Senate.
“Last September, House Democrats acted urgently to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act because we knew abortion rights were under threat. Shamefully, every single House Republican voted against this bill allowing abortion bans to take effect nationwide as soon as Roe was struck down. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans blocked the bill not once, but twice despite a Supreme Court stacked with anti-choice Justices and the draft Dobbs opinion making it clear this partisan court would end reproductive freedom in America after 50 years,” said Pingree. “Shortly after the Senate failed to act, the High Court issued its barbaric opinion in the Dobbs case, ending our bodily autonomy and lettng the government control our fates. Without the WHPA woman living in Republican-controlled states will continue to be treated as second class citizens who cannot be trusted to make their own decisions. If the Senate can waive the filibuster to raise the debt ceiling, they can waive it to protect abortion access,” the Pingree press release ended.
“Liberty and justice and freedom are under assault right now because of a radical, right-wing, illegitmate Supreme Court majority and their extreme co-conspirators in the House of Representatives,” Representative Hakeem Jeffries, (D-NY) said on the House floor. “We will always defend these freedoms,” according to an article in THE NEW YORK TIMES, today July 16, 2022.
In the same article, Representative Anna Eshoo, (D-CA) was quoted as saying: “the Supreme Court’s devastating decision to overturn Roe has created a patchwork of states with differing laws and restrictions causing societal chaos and confusion.”
“The action pushed the debate into the campaign, where both parties are hoping to motivate voters by framing the election around one of the country’s most long-running cultural divides. Polling suggests that support for abortion has risen as states have enacted laws restricting abortion and Democrats hope they can use that to motivate voters to elect officials who will enshrine abortion access into law,” accordig to the same article in THE NEW YORK TIMES today.
“We need two more Democratic pro-choice senators so we can eliminate the filibuster and make this legislation the law of the land,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday on the House floor.