Call for Reproductive Justice

Floor Speech

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Ms. PRESSLEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear friend and sister in service, Representative Tlaib, for cohosting this special session with me this evening to discuss the critical issue of reproductive justice in our country.

As chair of the Abortion Rights and Access Task Force in this first- ever pro-choice majority Congress, I am proud to join my colleagues tonight as we stand up and push back against these unprecedented, coordinated attacks on our collective reproductive rights and liberties.

You see, Mr. Speaker, the stakes could not be any higher. Since 2011, anti-choice politicians have pushed a wave of nearly 450 restrictive laws through State legislatures and now all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Over the last year alone, they have enacted 25 bans across dozens of States, pushing comprehensive reproductive healthcare, including abortion care, further and further out of reach.

They are working overtime to peddle harmful misconceptions and to legislate abortion out of existence.

As a result, reproductive health facilities have been forced to shut their doors, forcing individuals to travel across State lines, shoulder additional financial burdens, and jump through unnecessary and humiliating hoops just to access comprehensive care.

Just this morning, I, along with several of my House colleagues, marched to the Supreme Court to stand in solidarity with the justice warriors who are on the front lines, fighting for our collective humanity because, today, the Supreme Court begins deliberations on the constitutionality of a Louisiana State law that, if upheld by the Court, would literally shut down every abortion clinic across the State except for one.

To put this further into perspective, Mr. Speaker, this could leave just one doctor to provide abortion care for nearly 1 million individuals of reproductive age across the entire State.

If Louisiana's clinic shutdown law takes effect, it will not only decimate abortion access in Louisiana, but it will further embolden State legislatures around the country to do the same.

Additionally, this law is literally identical to the Texas law struck down by the Court just 3 years ago in the Whole Woman's Health case.

Since the Texas case, the facts certainly haven't changed. The precedent certainly hasn't changed. The only thing that has changed is the makeup of the Supreme Court, a court that is now filled with judges who want to strip us of our bodily autonomy.

Laws that restrict reproductive freedom undermine the very nature of equality and disproportionately harm the most vulnerable among us.

Every person, every individual, regardless of income, sexual orientation, or gender identity, deserves equitable access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare, including queer, trans, and nonbinary individuals. As I often say, people don't live in checked boxes; we live in nuance and intersectionality.

Abortion is healthcare. Reproductive justice is economic justice. Reproductive justice is racial justice.

Mr. Speaker, the stakes are high. Our fundamental human rights and liberties are not and should not be up for debate.

I am proud to stand here on the floor today to remind the courts that Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land and that the days of the Hyde amendment are numbered and that we stand with our partners in community, the organizers and resisters who are fighting day in and day out to ensure that every person has the right to self-determination over their reproductive health.

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