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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote on the nomination of Maria Lanahan to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. I will oppose her nomination.

As the principal deputy solicitor general in the Missouri Attorney General's Office, Ms. Lanahan has been at the forefront of litigating cases on politically charged issues, including restricting access to reproductive rights.

For example, she served as counsel of record for Missouri in an effort to restrict access to mifepristone, one of two drugs used for medication abortions, despite the fact that decades of peer-reviewed research has found mifepristone to be safe.

Ms. Lanahan argued in briefs that abortion medication are ``dangerous drugs,'' and she claimed in responses to written questions that she was unaware of more than 60 studies supporting the FDA's approval expanding the use of mifepristone.

It is notable that she argued that Missouri has standing to bring this case because access to abortion medication is ``depressing expected birth rates for teenaged mothers in Plaintiff States.'' She also claimed that Missouri would be injured because a loss of potential population would lead to ``diminishment of political representation'' and ``loss of federal funds.''

Ms. Lanahan also served as counsel of record to Missouri in its challenge to the CHNV Parole Program, which grants a pathway for parole in the United States from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. In the Missouri Attorney General's Office, she has demonstrated hostility to humanitarian parole, a critical component of our country's commitment to aiding people who are in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.

I urge my colleagues to oppose Ms. Lanahan's nomination.

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