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Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, today, I begin an effort to provide regular updates to the Senate and the country about the devastating consequences for women in every State if Texas Judge Kacsmaryk issues a ruling banning mifepristone nationwide.

Two weeks ago, I stood on the Senate floor and laid out what has to happen if and when this decision comes down. President Biden and the Food and Drug Administration must ignore it. The Food and Drug Administration has the authority it needs to keep this medication on the market without interruption, regardless of what this ruling says.

I have already laid out the rationale for why the case is absurd, meritless, and lacks any legal standing, as well as the FDA's legal authority to ignore such a ruling.

Today, I am not going to rehash those important points. I want to discuss what I have heard over the last couple of weeks about the human cost if every woman in this country loses access to mifepristone. Republicans on the Supreme Court said that the issue of abortion ought to be returned to the States, that the country shouldn't have a ``one size fits all'' policy on this subject that is so essential to protecting the privacy rights of women in our country.

I am going to talk about the States for a minute or two.

My home State of Oregon has some of the strongest protections for reproductive health in the Nation. Abortion is legal. If you have health insurance, it is required to cover this critical priority. If you don't, you can still access care. There are no waiting periods. You can get abortion medication via telemedicine and by mail, something that is crucial in large States and small States with very large rural populations, like mine. In fact, despite the dangerous Dobbs decision, access to reproductive care has been expanding in Oregon, partially to accommodate women traveling from nearby States whose own home State laws deny them this critical right to privacy.

Oregon has leaders like Governor Tina Kotek and Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum fighting to keep mifepristone legal and accessible to women in our State. I am proud to come from a State where the law reflects the fact that a woman's right to privacy is paramount and a woman's right to choose is hers and hers alone.

But if the plaintiffs and the anti-abortion activists prevail in that case in Texas, everything changes--everything changes--for the people facing important reproductive decisions every day and everywhere in the United States. We are talking about every single State--every one.

Despite strong laws on the books, women in my State of Oregon stand to lose mifepristone, a drug that is used now in more than 50 percent of abortions. So much for the idea of States' rights. All that talk about returning abortion law to the States is just going straight out the window.

I have said it before, and I will repeat it here. So often, the Republican Party often seems concerned about the States' rights only when they think a State is right. Otherwise, they seem happy to take over and tell the States what to do. Well, the people I am honored to represent, Oregonians, don't appreciate that selective application of their philosophy, but here it is.

Because of one judge, handpicked by Donald Trump, in the 16th largest city in Texas, there is serious potential that soon Americans, from one side of the country to the other and everywhere in between, will no longer be able to access the safest, most effective, and most relied on form of abortion care.

This is not leaving decisions to the States, like the U.S. Supreme Court told us would happen back in June.

Look at the Dobbs decision. That was the very foundation of the Dobbs decision. And, no shock to anybody, that is not what is being seen today. Here is what is going to ensue when the reckless decision in Texas comes down. We know that providers are already being stretched very thin. They are harassed and subject to vile threats. They are going to be thrown into a landscape of chaos and confusion.

Over the last few months, I have heard nonstop from these heroic medical professionals in my State. They worry there will be lines out the doors of women needing help. They worry about long wait times for the women who are fortunate enough to eventually receive in-person care. They worry about the women who will never make it to a doctor's office because they live in a rural county or lack the means to make the journey that will now be necessary to receive abortion care. They worry about what will happen next. When will another judge in another State that looks nothing like Oregon make it so that these providers are not able to treat women seeking to exercise their privacy rights?

This is not some far-fetched slippery slope. It is happening now-- now--right in front of our eyes.

Women have relied on mifepristone for more than 20 years. I held the first congressional hearing on this drug in 1990, when I was a Member of the other body. And finally--finally--there has been access to this drug, and it provides freedom to women to make their own private medical decisions and face far less stigma. That fundamental right is potentially about to be further gutted.

This is America. Aren't we for freedom--freedom to determine our own lives and futures, freedom to decide whether and when to have a family?

We have heard lots of horror stories of life before Roe. There are too many people with immense power in this country who tragically want to yank America back to those times. I doubt those people have given a moment's consideration to the danger women face when a pregnancy goes wrong, how their lives can be at risk.

This is about women's health and survival. This is about control over their lives, control over their bodies. It is about depriving Oregonians and women everywhere of their fundamental right to privacy.

I am here to say that, unfortunately, these anti-abortion activists aren't going to stop until abortion in every form and in every State is simply banned. The need to control women's bodies is not going to end at attacking mifepristone, which I would say, as I did earlier, has a long record--a long record--grounded not in political rhetoric but in scientific evidence for being safe and effective.

It will not end with the topic of abortion either. Rightwing extremists are coming after access to reproductive healthcare more broadly. Some lawmakers and their allies have filed legislation and lawsuits to block access to birth control--birth control.

I remember the President of the Senate helping us in this body to champion for so many years those priorities. And now we have legislation to block access to birth control, lifesaving cancer screenings, HIV prevention. The list goes on.

As these attacks go forward, we also know who is going to be hurt the most--people of modest means, people in rural areas, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ Americans.

I said it 2 weeks ago when I was on the floor to discuss the case, I will say it again: Enough, enough, enough. No more sitting back and just letting things happen. I don't want to be back here in a few days, but I fear that will be the case.

Let me talk about political change. Ever since the days when I was director at the Gray Panthers, the senior citizens group, I always said political change rarely starts here in Washington, DC, and trickles down. It starts at the grassroots level. What we really need now is a nationwide mobilization to protect a woman's right to privacy and the right to make these choices for herself. What I would like to ask today, for everybody who shares that view, is to go on out there and keep mobilizing. Talk to your city council member, talk to your mayor, talk to your State legislator, talk to anybody who has an election certificate about how important this is to you. Momentum is needed more now than ever to ensure that mifepristone stays legal and accessible.

I will close with this. The FDA, using the authority it already has, needs to keep mifepristone on the market without any interruption, regardless of Judge Kacsmaryk's ruling. And we the people need to mobilize in Oregon, in Michigan, in Florida, and in every nook and cranny of the Nation.

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