-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, we are here today because Republicans are seeking a national ban on abortion. And if we say it once here, we should say it 10 times, 100 times, because literally months ago it would have been virtually unimaginable--first, that Roe v. Wade would be struck down and, second, that Republicans would propose a national ban on abortion.

Women across Connecticut and the country are scared and angry. And to those who say those fears and outrage are illusory or unjustified, all you have to do is read their words. Listen to what they say. They are promising the American people that there will be a national ban on abortion.

And to the people of Connecticut who think we have a safe haven because our legislature and Governor have courageously established protections for Roe v. Wade and for women who come to Connecticut seeking abortion services and for doctors who depend on our safeguards, there will be no safe haven in this country--none, nowhere--if Republicans go where they say, explicitly, they are heading.

I trust women with their doctors and their clergy and their family to make decisions about when and whether to become pregnant, whether to have children, and when to terminate a pregnancy short of term. I trust women--not the government, not politicians--to make these preeminently important decisions.

And I promise the people of Connecticut I will not back down. I will not stand for this kind of national ban on abortion.

Republicans have said, historically: We will let the States decide. It should be a matter of State legislatures making these decisions.

This ban on abortion takes away power from women and from States, contrary to their promises over years and years about States' rights. But more than a theoretical or hypothetical argument about the powers of State legislatures or the allocation of responsibility in our Federal system, this law will have destructive and catastrophic consequences for millions of women. It will impair the everyday lives of women and families across America.

It is not just a woman's issue. It is on all of us to say we will not back down; we will not stand for a national ban on abortion.

It is part of a tireless and seemingly boundless campaign against women's rights, but these attacks on reproductive rights and personal freedom apparently know no limits. Remember, first, Republican- controlled State legislatures moved to outlaw abortion entirely, forcing women suffering from ectopic pregnancies to bleed out in hospitals and refusing to care for child rape victims. But now Republicans are moving forward with plans to ban abortion everywhere, under any circumstances, and they are wresting a woman's right to make her own personal healthcare decision, sometimes a decision made during a devastating medical diagnosis out of her hands, putting those decisions into government's hands.

Make no mistake, the 15 weeks--all of the technical stuff that Republicans invoke, doesn't take away from the fact that it is a national ban that will eviscerate Connecticut's law. Congressional Republicans will decide whether or not women can access this vital help.

Eliminating access to abortion services as a result of the Dobbs decision has already caused devastating consequences. The loss of reproductive services in some States has caused a ripple effect for healthcare providers across the United States, which proves, for anyone who doubted, that banning reproductive services doesn't stop women from seeking those services. It just adds additional barriers and danger. In fact, it unnecessarily puts their lives at risk.

This bill would place a ban on abortion across the country, and it would include New York and Massachusetts, not just Connecticut and Delaware. Go across the country and pick those States where these rights have been protected.

When I was in the State legislature, and then as attorney general, I helped write the law that incorporates and codifies Roe v. Wade in Connecticut statute. And now Connecticut has moved beyond that statute to provide a safe haven. But all of it would be gone. All of it would be overwritten by this law.

Americans should have no doubt about where Republicans stand now on this issue. They want to punish women. They want to punish doctors. They will do it at the State level. They will do it at the national level. No State, not even Connecticut, is safe from this threat. They are coming after our laws in Connecticut. They are coming after women in Connecticut and men who believe in the rights of women as a matter of constitutional and personal freedom to make these decisions.

Our laws should protect the rights of women seeking to make their own personal decisions about their reproductive health in consultation with medical providers, and I will fight tooth and nail this effort and any other effort that seeks to control, criminalize, and dehumanize women making this choice and the healthcare providers compassionately giving them care.

The American people are in our corner. American people--whatever they may think about abortion in their own lives, for their own family, for their daughters or wives or others--they support the rights of those women to control their own healthcare decision. It is an intensely personal decision, when it has to be made, and sometimes a threat of life, something going horribly wrong in a pregnancy, is the reason for it.

I will continue to fight for all in Connecticut who believe in this fundamental right. It is a matter of our constitutional DNA in Connecticut, beginning with Griswold v. Connecticut, which laid the groundwork for the right of privacy which is the underpinning for that constitutional freedom. And all of us, I hope, will reject this effort to ban abortion in the United States.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source