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WASHINGTON — The Home Committee on Oversight and Reform is listening to testimony from state officers, abortion rights advocates and authorized consultants Wednesday concerning the impression the Supreme Court docket’s reversal of Roe v. Wade has had in states which have imposed limits on abortion.
Amongst these testifying on the 10 a.m. ET listening to are Democratic Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, Democratic Georgia Home Rep. Renitta Shannon, Nationwide Ladies’s Regulation Middle President Fatima Goss Graves, College of California, Irvine legislation professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin, We Testify abortion advocate Sarah Lopez, and Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Erin Hawley, spouse of Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.
The committee tried to get abortion suppliers to testify, a few of whom have skilled violence, however they have been too afraid to seem and share their tales, committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., mentioned.
“Right this moment’s listening to is particularly necessary as a result of Republicans aren’t going to cease with Dobbs,” Maloney mentioned in her opening assertion, referring to the Supreme Court docket ruling. “They’re brazenly planning to impose a nationwide ban on abortion. The injury that might trigger is inconceivable.”
“As we hear concerning the impression of the lack of abortion rights at present, I wish to ask these watching our listening to a easy query: Is that this the nation we would like for our kids?” Maloney continued. “Do we would like a rustic the place our kids have fewer rights than we did? Or will we wish to stay in a rustic that respects and trusts ladies to make the perfect selections for themselves and their households?”
“The reply is evident,” she mentioned. “People overwhelmingly assist the appropriate to abortion.”
Committee rating member James Comer, R-Ky., defended the Supreme Court docket ruling in his opening remarks, saying the Dobbs choice “didn’t outlaw abortion” however merely returned the problem to the states.
Comer criticized Democrats for attacking the excessive court docket’s legitimacy and “in search of to intimidate by thinly veiled threats.” He mentioned Democrats are attempting to “draw consideration away from the failures of the Biden administration — failures which have led to skyrocketing inflation, record-high gasoline costs, a daunting scarcity of child formulation and the worst border disaster within the historical past of America.”
Goss Graves, of the Nationwide Ladies’s Regulation Middle, testified that she “can not overstate how a lot authorized uncertainty and chaos that this Supreme Court docket has unleashed with this unsound opinion,” leading to individuals going through “imprecise and evolving and even typically conflicting state legal guidelines.”
“Employers and colleges and metropolis governments, they’re all buried beneath the burden of this explosion,” she mentioned. “Clinics and well being care professionals, they’re attempting to make sense of this shifting panorama. Sufferers are confused and they’re scared about their rights and so they as people are pressured to navigate an unsure authorized panorama. Many can not journey together with those that can’t afford it.”
Michigan Rep. McMorrow famous that whereas her state has a 1931 set off legislation that makes offering an abortion a felony, with no exception for age, rape or incest, the process continues to be authorized due to a preliminary injunction blocking the legislation’s enforcement. She defended sustaining and rising entry to abortion providers.
“Each state of affairs is completely different,” McMorrow mentioned. “Each particular person and household in search of abortion care does so for various causes. Typically contraception fails. Typically a household already has youngsters and is aware of that they can’t assist anymore for therefore many others. Getting pregnant is tough and staying pregnant, safely and healthily is even tougher.”
Georgia Rep. Shannon spoke about having an abortion 20 years in the past and going through “vital pointless burdens.” During the last twenty years, she mentioned, “obstacles to accessing abortion care have solely elevated, exacerbating an ongoing public well being disaster outlined by extra maternal deaths rising poverty and higher inequality total.”
“The Dobbs choice will quantity to structural violence for a lot of communities, however most egregiously for black, brown, indigenous individuals of colour and other people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ individuals and other people dwelling on the intersection of those identities who’ve already sustained centuries of oppression and lack of entry to reproductive freedom,” Shannon mentioned.
Hawley, the one witness invited by Republicans, known as Roe “horrible constitutional legislation” and mentioned there’s “no such factor as an undesirable little one.” She mentioned abortion “treats infants as mere objects, even whereas science establishes that infants are each totally alive, and totally human.” Hawley additionally mentioned that many corporations are “keen” to assist pay for girls to finish their pregnancies however questioned what number of of them supply to pay for diapers, little one care or allow versatile work schedules.
The Supreme Court docket overturned Roe in a 5-4 choice on June 24 — practically 50 years after the landmark ruling — in a case it heard on Mississippi’s abortion ban, which the court docket dominated 6-3 to uphold.
The committee mentioned the listening to will give attention to the practically half of states the place abortion has been or might quickly be banned. It mentioned the listening to may also study how these restrictions perpetuate “cycles of adversarial well being and financial outcomes” and actions proposed by Democrats to guard and broaden the appropriate to an abortion.
The Home is scheduled to vote this week on two abortion rights payments, together with laws to codify the abortion rights that have been assured beneath Roe v. Wade and to bar states from attempting to cease ladies from going out-of-state for abortions, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., mentioned in a letter to her colleagues. Neither invoice has an opportunity of passing within the Senate due to Republican opposition.
In the meantime, the Senate Well being, Schooling, Labor and Pensions Committee is holding an identical listening to Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET, with witnesses from varied pro-abortion organizations, together with Deliberate Parenthood.
President Joe Biden signed an government order final week that goals to safeguard entry to reproductive well being care providers, together with abortion and contraception; shield sufferers’ privateness and entry to correct info; and promote the protection and safety of sufferers, suppliers and clinics.
Biden and prime Democrats have been urging individuals to prove to vote in November to elect pro-abortion rights candidates and have been warning that Republicans intend to enact a federal abortion ban.
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