Scarper Ridge Golden Gate National Recreation Area Boundary Adjustment Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Go ahead.

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Hawaii both for her eloquent statements and for her willingness to let me go ahead of her. I appreciate that, but she was here first.

I come to the floor today to join my colleagues Senator Blumenthal, Senator Hirono, and so many others in this caucus because after years of relentless attacks on reproductive freedoms nationwide, what we are seeing from our colleagues here in Congress and the Trump administration is that they have now set their sights on our Nation's veterans, those who have dedicated their lives in service to our country.

The Trump administration's new policy that we are voting to overturn today isn't just extreme; it is flat-out dangerous. Republicans and Democrats alike have committed to doing everything we can to uphold the basic promises we have made to our Nation's veterans. So we have to ask: Why is this administration bending over backward to further erode the freedoms our veterans risk their lives to protect by ripping away the basic, essential healthcare that women need?

After the Dobbs decision, the VA took a basic but critical step to protect the health of veterans and their families by providing them access to healthcare in a very specific set of circumstances--tragic instances like when our veterans have been victims of rape, when they have experienced incest, or when their lives or their health has been directly in danger--because when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and diminished the reproductive freedoms that women have enjoyed for half a century, it was clear that the Federal Government needed to take action to make it easier, not harder, for the hundreds of thousands of young women who have served our country to be able to access basic healthcare when they need it the most--veterans who have often waited until after their military service to start a family and now must question whether it is going to be safe for them to do so, veterans who are now facing the most restrictive abortion ban across the Federal Government.

This policy doesn't just prevent those brave Americans from receiving care under dire and heartbreaking circumstances; it actually prevents them from receiving basic counseling about their health as well. As my colleagues have already pointed out, this ban on abortion counseling means that VA providers can't discuss pregnancy options with their patients.

While the VA claims they will always save a veteran's life, their own internal guidance is so vague that providers will be forced to make impossible decisions. In this case, the lack of planning and specificity will leave it up to the VA to make split-second decisions about an urgent medical need based on very murky guidelines.

At every turn, this administration has pushed forward dangerous policies intended to threaten access to full reproductive care. That is why I am calling on our colleagues across the aisle to show some common sense and to realize that we can't repay those veterans who have already sacrificed so much for their country with a policy that puts their lives in danger, particularly at a time when one in three of our Nation's female veterans has reported experiencing military sexual trauma over the course of their service.

Let me repeat that because I think that is a staggering statistic. One in three of our Nation's female veterans has reported experiencing military sexual trauma during their service.

These brave women deserve better than the carelessness of this administration refusing to give them full access to reproductive health care. We can't sit back and abandon them when they need it the most. We can't sit back and watch as reproductive freedoms slip away because access to necessary, lifesaving reproductive care should not be left to chance or the split-second decision of a provider. It should be a fundamental right, especially in the United States of America, where we have a Constitution that says that all people are created equal. Now, I know it says ``all men are created equal,'' but I think, since the founding of this country, that has been expanded to the understanding that we are talking about all of the citizens of this country.

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