ICYMI: Op-Ed by Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus Co-Chairs: Where were you the moment your world changed?
The Hill—Looking back at the Dobbs ruling: Where were you the moment your world changed?
BY REPS. BARBARA LEE (D-CALIF.) AND DIANA DEGETTE (D-COLO.), OPINION CONTRIBUTORS - 06/24/23 1:00 PM ET
As first anniversaries go, this is a day we wish we did not remember. Nobody in America should have to remember where they were when a basic freedom was taken from them.
Never before has our nation mourned the first anniversary of a fundamental right lost. But today, as we reflect on the lives forever altered in the year since the Supreme Court decision inDobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health— a decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, upended half a century of precedent,and eliminated the right to choose in states across the nation — the House GOP majority wants nothing more than to hide from this day and this issue entirely.
In the last year, when abortion was on the ballot inKansas,Kentucky,Michigan,Montana,Vermont, andCalifornia, and voters in each state stood resoundingly on the side of abortion rights and access, it was radio silence.
In the last six months, amidbaseless attacks on the safe, effective medication abortion drug mifepristone, we heard nothing.
Every single day in post-DobbsAmerica, as women have been forced to travel thousands of miles and pay thousands of dollars for essential health care, to risk death before their providers were able to perform an abortion, or to carry an unwanted or unviable pregnancy to term—as providers faced prosecution for caring for their patients and as politicians substituted their judgments for those of medical experts, we have heard nothing from across the aisle.
Even after expeditingthree extreme, anti-choice bills through their House Rules package, the GOP only brought two of them to the floor. Now, the third seems to be facing quiet resistance within their Caucus.
But the clock has run out, and it is time to say the quiet part out loud.
We will not let them hide from this moment.
We will not let them hide from the terror, chaos, and confusion that the Dobbsdecision unleashed one year ago, from the indecipherable patchwork of state laws stripping their constituents’ freedom to make their own health care decisions, and from the further damage the shameful policies they proposed this Congress would cause.
We are making them confront this day: the day Roe v. Wadefell.
As co-chairs of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, we are using every tool at our disposal to force necessary action on this issue, even if that action is over the objections and resistance of House SpeakerKevin McCarthy(R-Calif.) and the members of his party.
That is why this week, the Pro-Choice Caucusled the filing of a discharge petition, which would require McCarthy to hold a vote on theWomen’s Health Protection Act (WHPA)—landmark legislation to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade and safeguard the right to abortion nationwide, once and for all.
So far 211 House Democrats have come together demanding to vote on this bill.
There are 222 House Republicans today. If just seven of those members stepped up and took this opportunity do the right thing, we could send WHPA to the floor.
One year after Roefell, the Pro-Choice Caucus and our Democratic colleagues are standing together, fighting for reproductive freedom for all. Any of our 222 Republican colleagues could be one of those 10 to join us. Today, we are putting them on record and making them confront who we are fighting for.
To confront the Florida mother who wasforced to carry an unviable pregnancy to termand put herself and her family through unimaginable suffering, despite making a decision to terminate the pregnancy.
To confront the Texas women whose doctors sent her home when she suffered an incomplete miscarriage during a desperately wanted pregnancy—who was only able to get care when shenearly died of sepsisand suffered uterine damage so severe that she may no longer be able to carry children.
To confront the Indiana abortion provider who wasthreatened with prosecution by the state attorney generalfor providing care to a 10-year-old from Ohio who was a victim of rape.
To confront all the people these members serve, who deserve to hold them accountable for their failure to address the reproductive health care crisis in their communities.
The Speaker of the House reads the same statistics we do. He is responsible for representing his constituents and the American people, just as we are. He knows, as we do, that people in this country support Roe v. Wade and the right to abortion. They believe that they should make decisions about their lives, health, and bodies with their medical providers—notwith Speaker McCarthy.
And yet, his purposeful inaction and the inaction of the members of his party is nothing new. The extreme GOP has waged a decades-long war on reproductive freedom. The fall of Roewas only the first step. The harmful laws now in effect across the nation are a continuation of their destructive march toward one goal: a nationwide ban on abortion.
Not on our watch.
The world changed on June 24, 2022, with preventable, devastating costs in the year since.
We know exactly where we were when our rights were taken.
To our Republican colleagues: where are you today? And where will you be tomorrow—with the people or left behind?
Barbara Lee and Diana DeGette are co-chairs of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus.