Watch Senator Rosen’s Speech HERE.
WASHINGTON, DC – During a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) strongly urged her colleagues to support the Right to Contraception Act and protect women’s right to access birth control. In her remarks, Senator Rosen called out anti-choice efforts to take away women’s freedom to make their family-planning decisions.
Senator Rosen has been a champion for defending women’s reproductive rights. Earlier this year, she joined the Access to Birth Control Act to protect access to contraceptives and ensure that no one is intimidated, threatened, or harassed while seeking birth control. Senator Rosen also helped introduce the Let Doctors Provide Reproductive Health Care Act to protect doctors and other health care professionals from being prosecuted for providing reproductive care to their patients. She also helped introduce the Women’s Health Protection Act to restore Roe v. Wade.
Below are Senator Rosen’s floor remarks as delivered:
Senator Rosen: The Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, it was a wake up call for all Americans.
It demonstrated that a fundamental right – the right of women to make decisions over their own bodies – could be taken away in the blink of an eye, in the blink of an eye, by anti-choice extremists.
And since that decision nearly two years ago, we have seen countless attacks on women’s reproductive freedoms across our nation.
We’re seeing anti-choice states enact rigid abortion bans without exceptions for rape or incest, states that are forcing, forcing emergency room doctors to call their lawyers before treating women who are going through a miscarriage, one of the most awful days of their lives. And states like Alabama, they’ve even threatened IVF.
These restrictive attacks are meant to control what women can and can’t do with their bodies. I’m going to repeat that. These restrictive attacks are meant to control women – what they can and can’t do with their bodies. They are meant to dictate to women their family planning decisions, and they want to put extreme politicians between women and their doctors.
The last two years have made it crystal clear: we cannot, we cannot rely on the Supreme Court alone to protect our access to care.
We know overturning Roe was just the beginning.
If extreme, anti-choice politicians and activists, well, if they have their way, access to birth control is next.
Contraception has been safely used by millions of women for decades.
It has allowed women to take control over their own bodies, to decide when they want to start a family, how many kids they want to have, who they want to start a family with.
And for these very same reasons, the right to contraception has been a target of anti-choice extremists for years.
So let me be clear: overturning the right to contraception would be catastrophic in a post-Roe world.
It would mean that women in states with the most restrictive abortion bans would have zero ability, zero ability at all to make any decisions over their own bodies. They would have no ability to prevent an unplanned pregnancy, or get the care they need. Women would have zero ability to get the care they need or prevent a pregnancy.
And this isn’t just a hypothetical. The Supreme Court has clearly demonstrated that it will not hesitate, it will not hesitate to reverse landmark decisions and take away women’s reproductive freedoms.
That’s why my colleagues and I introduced the Right to Contraception Act to codify women’s constitutional right to make family-planning decisions.
And this bill will do exactly what is in the name: it will just guarantee the right for women to access and to use birth control. It will guarantee the right for women to have access to contraception.
Later today, we’re going to have an opportunity to pass this important legislation.
And I urge everyone in this chamber to allow this bill to move forward and prevent extreme politicians from getting in the way of women’s reproductive choices. To prevent extreme politicians from taking control over women’s bodies. To prevent extreme politicians from being in your doctor’s office.
And if we fail to act, the Supreme Court could roll our rights back once again, and every woman across this country will suffer from our inaction today.
Thank you.
###
