This week, I have heard from you about several of the opinions the Supreme Court issued at the conclusion of this year’s term, including many calls about the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.
Like many of you who have called or written this week, I am deeply concerned about the decision and its implications. As I noted in my email last week, the decision is an affront to the liberty, autonomy, privacy, and dignity of all Americans, and of American women in particular. With this decision revoking rather than protecting rights for Americans, the Court has created a devastating and dangerous path forward that jeopardizes the health and undermines the equality of people across this country. In addition to the devastating effects that abortion bans like those in Texas will have on individuals seeking abortions, I am concerned about what they will mean for people experiencing miscarriages, using contraception, and seeking fertility care, as well as the more expansive reversal of civil rights that .
Many of you asked what we are doing about it in Congress. As a reminder, last September, shortly after Texas’ S.B. 8, the House passed the Women’s Health Protection Act, H.R. 3755, a bill that makes the framework of Roe v. Wade the law in all 50 states. As an original co-sponsor of the bill, I spoke on the House Floor about the importance of this bill for states like ours and for protecting the health, privacy, dignity, and freedom of women and families across this country. That bill passed the House and is pending before the Senate, and President Biden has urged the Senate to pass the bill.
As a member of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, I have worked with my colleagues to advocate for and to advance legislation to address the many challenges that people seeking access to reproductive health care, including abortion care, are facing in Texas and other states across the country. Last December, I introduced the Stopping Abortion Bounties Act, which, if enacted, would impose a 100% federal tax on any bounty award obtained under S.B. 8 or legislation like it. More recently, I joined as an original co-sponsor on the My Body, My Data Act of 2022 to protect the health and personal data relating to reproductive health by creating a new national standard to protect personal reproductive health data, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.
I am also actively working to affirm and protect the right the Constitutional right to travel freely and voluntarily throughout the United States. And the House is working to respond to other concerns that the decision raises, some outlined in the concurring opinion of Justice Thomas, including protecting privacy rights for rights from access to contraception and in-vitro fertilization to marriage equality. I will keep you updated on these issues as the House reconvenes in July.
