Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I want to start today by expressing my appreciation to all of my colleagues who will be out here today speaking out and to the women and men nationwide who are doing the same today in their own communities.

In the last few weeks, we have seen some of the most blatant and cruel efforts yet to deny women access to a safe, legal abortion. We have seen legislation so extreme, it would even block a 12-year-old survivor of rape from getting an abortion and sentence healthcare providers to prison for providing safe, medically sound care to their patients, which is their responsibility.

The extreme politicians behind these cruel abortion bans are not stopping in Alabama or Missouri or anywhere else; they want to take these bans all the way to the Supreme Court. They want to allow Brett Kavanaugh to do what President Trump and Republicans chose him to do-- roll back the decision in Roe v. Wade that established a woman's constitutionally protected right to make her own decisions about her own body and her own healthcare.

They are pushing for this even though they know as well as we do that without the ability to exercise that right, women lose their lives; even though they know just as well as we do that without this right, doctors will be blocked from providing medically appropriate care. Let me be frank. Extreme conservatives will push these abortion bans all the way to the Supreme Court even though they know--or maybe even because they do know--that in a world where women cannot control what happens to their own bodies, they are less able to plan their family and stay financially secure and independent. That means they are less free and less equal.

I am not going to stand for that, and Senate Democrats are not going to stand for that either. I am proud to be on the floor today with a number of my colleagues who will be here standing for what our Constitution confirms is true: Women have the right to access safe, legal abortion, and this makes our country stronger because women are absolutely critical to our country's strength. I am proud to be making clear that even in the face of relentless attacks on women's health and rights, we are not going to back down one bit.

The truth is, there are certain extreme politicians around the country who want to take us backward to the ``Mad Men'' era or, honestly, quite a bit before that. But they aren't speaking for our country--quite the opposite. In fact, the vast majority of women and men nationwide, including those from all different backgrounds, agree that abortion should be safe and it should be legal, just as our Constitution says. Those people are watching now. They are speaking up, and they are absolutely going to remember who stood up to protect women's health and rights and who pushed to take those rights away.

We have a number of Senators who will be speaking about this today, and I want to thank them for being here today.

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