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Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am very glad to stand with Senator Cortez Masto to support this legislation and also recognize the leadership of Senator Murray on this issue as we fight to protect fundamental rights belonging to the women of America.

For nearly half a century, women relied on Roe's recognition that the Constitution protects their right to decide if and when to have children. A radical and captured Supreme Court has revoked this constitutional right, disrupting the reliance and trust of generations of women to make fundamental decisions about their own health and their own futures.

Overturning Roe is wildly unpopular, which is why extremists went to the captured Court to get a change that they could not get through the democratic process. Deep-pocketed extremist interests invested hundreds of millions of dollars over decades to build a Court where that kind of stuff could get done.

It is an outrage. Women across this country are angry. Democrats in Congress are angry, and we are fighting back in every way we can.

In addition to State abortion bans, emboldened legislatures are readying even more extreme restrictions on women, like proposals to investigate, prosecute, and sue women who travel out of State to get the care they need. You think I am kidding? Legislation to this effect has already been introduced in Missouri. The Constitution already protects the right to interstate travel, but as we have now seen, we can't rely on an increasingly extremist Supreme Court to protect our rights.

Remember, in a large number of pregnancies, abortion actually becomes medically necessary--medically necessary--for the health of the woman to bear children in the future, for the life of the woman to survive, the risk the pregnancy presents, for the risk to have other children.

So it is extremely important to make sure women can get that medical care. It is extremely important to protect their right to make this choice themselves. And it is extremely important to protect medical professionals in States like Rhode Island, my home State, from punishment for providing care to women from States where State legislatures have made abortions illegal.

I was proud to work with Senator Cortez Masto from the outset to help draft the Freedom to Travel for Healthcare Act. It will protect women's rights to cross State lines and seek medical services and protect providers in States that they are traveling to. I join my colleagues to urge swift passage of this bill. This is just one step. There is much more work to be done to stand against this continuing assault on women's constitutional rights.

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