ision

overturning roe v. wade.

, a report came out that a conservative majority on the united states supreme court is ready to overturn roe v. wade and uproot decades of president affirming -- decades of precedent, affirming a woman's right to an abortion. it is hard not to feel angry, troubled and deeply disturbed about what overturning roe would do to women across america. more than 20 states have laws or constitutional amendments in place that would outlaw abortions should the supreme court invalidate row.

over 80 million women live in those states. if the report is accurate, the decision would be an abomination, and abomination. one of the worst ever in modern history. of course, republicans have sought this outcome for years, so you think they would be celebrating such a decision, but they aren't, no, this morning republicans are shamefully scrambling, scrambling to try to distract from the main issue. republicans are spending all their focus on the leak because they don't want to talk about roe v. wade, when they know they are on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of american people. let me say it again, republicans are spending all their focus on the leak because they don't want to focus on roe v. wade where they know they are on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of the american people. try as they might, they can't

distract from the truth. the blame for this decision fall squarely on senate republicans who spent years pushing extremist judges and justices while claiming this day would never come. but come it has. so, in light of this potential ruling, i want to make three things very clear. first, it is our intention for the senate to hold a vote on legislation to codify the right to an abortion and law. second, a vote on this legislation is no longer an abstract exercise. this is as urgent and as real as it gets. we will vote to protect a woman's right to choose in every american is going to see which side every senator stands on. third, to the american people i say this, the elections this november will have consequences

because the rights of 100 million women are now on the ballot. to help fight this awful decision. i urge every american to make their voices heard this week and this year. call your members, write them, call your senators, write them, email them, text them, and most of all, castor ballots this november. because if roe v. wade is overturned, we have to assume there's more to come. the question is, what will these republicans, these right wing republicans target next. will they have the supreme court overturned griswold so they can prevent american women from contraception? they may say, we wouldn't do that because of precedent. why would anyone believe them anymore? will they have the supreme court overturned -- overrun -- so they

could prevent same-sex marriage? they may say, we wouldn't do that because of precedent. why would anyone believe them? nope, it's clear that they will try to turn back the clock to a time when women, people of color , lgbtq people are second-class citizens. i do not believe the hard right will succeed, i still firmly believe in my very bones the story of american democracy is the story of progress. democrats are going to fight this decision all the way for as long as it takes. we will not relent, we will not give up, we know history is on our side, and we are determined to preserve this precious right that are the bedrock of this great nation. i think all of my colleagues for being here and call on our great leader on so many of these issues, senator murray.

>> thank you, if the report we saw last night is true, that the supreme court plans to end the constitutional right to abortion in this country, and overturn roe v. wade, this is a five alarm fire. it is set -- it is exactly the kind of dangerous outcome i have been warning about, and was always the goal of republicans. they are already banning abortion and state legislators across the country. they are already planning for a federal ban right here in the senate. and they already push through the far right justices to overturn roe and in the right to an abortion. in a matter of days or weeks, the horrifying reality is, we could live in a country without row. a country where women are forced to remain pregnant, no matter their personal circumstances,

and yes, we are also talking about situations like rape or incensed. a country where extreme politicians will control patients most private decisions, and let's be clear, abortion bands will not actually end abortion. they will just make them unsafe, and they will hurt the women with the least resources in the tightest budgets. i'm furious, furious that republicans could be this cruel. that the supreme court could be this heartless, that in legislators across the country, extreme republicans are ready for their trigger bands to go into effect. they are excited, even. it is -- and we won't stand for it. i am not going to sit silently and neither should any of you. i know for so many women across the country, this is deeply personal and it is deeply

personal to me as well. i remember life before row. i knew people who did not have someone to turn to for a safe abortion, who were not wealthy. so even if they could find one, they might not be able to afford it. people who got unsafe procedures that left them, at a very young age, unable to give birth. that has stayed with me to this day. as has so many of the stories i have heard from women after roe v. wade. i know how big of a difference it has made in the lives of so many women across the country, which is why i am furious at the idea that republicans are going to take us backward, that this will be the first generation of women with fewer rights than their mothers. my heart goes out to everyone across the country who is feeling the weight of this news. but i'm not done fighting on

this issue, far from it, and i know women across the country are not either. we will not be still, we will not be silent, and we will not back down. and to those who have not felt the weight of this moment yet who don't think this could happen, who don't think it matters to them, it is time to wake up. every single person in every single state needs to realize this impacts you, your choices and your right. it is not happening to someone else and some other state, it is happening everywhere in the highest court of the land is preparing to rip away your rights at this very moment. we need to fight back with everything we've got right now. we need a pro-choice majority in the senate. we need to protect our pro-choice majority in the house. we need to send president biden

a bill that will protect every woman's right to an abortion and we are going to keep pushing the make it happen because women's rights are at stake. women's health is at stake. women's economic security is at stake. women's lives are at stake. thank you. quicktake you very much, senator schumer. america woke up today to an unusual event of our democracy. the news that a constitutional right is about to be taken away from the american people. i'm an amateur historian and i'm searching and i'm searching in history for a comparable situation where some rights which we have entertained and used and counted on for 50 years is gone. that's with the opinion is all about, taking away that right to choose. that right for individual women

to have reproductive freedom in the country. i read parts of the illegal decision this morning to try to absorb what his thinking was, and i was stuck on one point. he seemed to make a very strong argument that says the word abortion is not in the constitution so it can't be constitutionally protected -- protective. i would say to the justice and those protecting him, try to find the word privacy, you won't, it's not in there, but in griswold versus connecticut we decided that is part of what being an american is all about. if they are going to be so literal in the translation, be prepared, because this culture war will take us beyond abortion, it will take us in the family planning, the rights of those who are lgbtq, and certainly gay marriage are all at stake in this culture war that the supreme court is pushing on the american people now. i guess at the day of happiness for senator mcconnell and others. they have been focusing on changing the federal judiciary. get the lengths they went to to

make sure they got an extra vote on the supreme court. leave the vacancy for 10 months after scalia died. to say to president obama, no, you were not elected for a four-year term, you get three and on the fourth year we will decide whether you have the power to fill an appointment in a vacancy. you know what senator mcconnell did, he held out and got his wish, trump one and he came back with a justice who would serve his political needs. that is the reality of the supreme court today. the credibility of that institution is at stake as long as we are dealing with this kind of extremism. we must gather together and say there is one great saving grace, the constitution envisions so many things, it even envisioned the constitution. senator murray said there's an answer. the answer is in november and the american people stand up and say this is enough of the culture war at the expense of our freedoms in america. we need people representing us in the house in the senate who will stand up to basic freedoms and not take them away from the american people.

i would just say to you this morning, the contours of the november election this year changed. we are going to find across america that this decision by the alito court is going to be a decision that will reverberate around america and states red and blue and the american people will have the last word. >> thank you, senator durbin. this is a very serious moment in our country for women and for our health care. and that's why we are here today. if this leak supreme court decision is accurate, it will have grave consequences for women all across our country. it would be the ultimate intrusion into a woman's right to privacy. the ultimate intrusion into a woman's right to privacy. imagine what this would mean for a 12-year-old in michigan who is raped. if roe v. wade falls, michigan

will revert back to a 1931 law that makes a portion at any stage a felony with no exceptions for rape or in zest. who should decide what's best for this 12-year-old? the girl and her family working with her doctor based on their own faith, or a right wing supreme court and republicans in the united states senate. imagine what this means for a woman who learns that the pregnancy that she has wanted so desperately is in viable, and her own life is at risk. who should decide what happens to her? the woman supported by her family and her doctor based on her own religious faith, or a right wing supreme court and

republicans in the united states senate. it all comes down to who should make decisions about your health, your life, and your future as a woman in america. right wing republican lawmakers, right wing members of the united states supreme court or you as an american woman? democrats stand with women across our country who have the right to make their own reproductive decisions. we need to pass the women's health protection act now and then we need to vote. -- vote in november. sen. smith: when i worked at planned parenthood, i saw firsthand every day capacity of women to make good decisions about their health care,

including abortion. in this morning, those women and women all across this country, people all across this country woke up outraged. how dare, how dare this conservative right wing supreme court -- how could they do this? how could they take away that right? this is the first time in my living memory that the united states supreme court has actually taken away a right. and we are talking here about the most american of values, the values of freedom and autonomy and self-determination. and we all know here today that this didn't just happen. this is the end result of a decades long campaign fueled by dark money in this country to overturn roe v. wade and capture the courts. that is what we are seeing today. and that -- and it is clear as appel justice alito's draft, says, ro must be overturned.

and this will affect everyone in this country. you know that today, over half of all abortions are medication abortions. so if you are thinking this is not going to affect me because i could still go and get that medication in order to make my own decisions about my own health care, no, that is not the case at all. it's hard not to think that people who are supporting this, please republican legislators are so out of the mainstream, so out of the mainstream. 70% in every state across the country, at least, of americans believe that abortions should not be banned. that is the work we have ahead of us. we need to organize, organize, organize, vote on the senate floor for what we believe in and do everything we can to protect the fundamental right. >> democrats have been fighting

for americans health care will rights and republicans have been trying to overturn them. they have tried to overturn the affordable care act and we have stopped them. and now, you don't hear them talking about that because they now want to talk about taking away women's reproductive health care rights. we are going to fight in the united states senate to make sure every american understands that 50 years of settled law, 50 years of -- 50 years of republican nominees coming before the committee in saying that they believe this is settled law to now force on the american public, and invasion of their rights to privacy and pretend that those rights to privacy do not exist in the constitution. these people are dead wrong. the american people know that those rights to privacy affect so many aspects of their lives. they affect every aspect,

whether it's the government intruding on their lives, whether it's other corporations, they believe we can make laws to protect an individual right to privacy, and that also is part of determining what we as women do with our own bodies. so, the american people, the majority of my colleagues just said, the majority of american people support this policy as settled law. the majority of states support this as settled law, and now, we just need a few men on the supreme court to come clean about the intentions that they never made clear to a senate judiciary committee and have our republican colleagues come clear about this because they are overturning your constitutional right and we in america, the women of america will march to protect these rights on behalf of all of us.

>> if the alito opinion becomes the decision of the united states supreme court, please understand that it does not emerge from a vacuum. it emerges from a concerted and often covert campaign to capture the court. a campaign that senate democrats documented in may of 2020 with the captured courts report. four months later, we predicted the effect on reproductive rights and chronicled the dark money running behind this operation on that issue, and i want to thank, in particular, tammy baldwin, who led that report. the d pcc chair who published it, chuck schumer, our leader who led it, and senators

feinstein, gillibrand, blumenthal and duckworth. as we fight this, we will continue to look behind the curtain at why we are where we are, thank you. >> thank you to my senate colleagues, all of us democrats for standing strong on this issue. i'm so proud to be with them today. you know, i was a law clerk to justice blackmun, the author of roe v. wade shortly after the united states supreme court decided 7-2, not even close, 7-2 to make roe v. wade establish precedent as it has been for the last 50 years, and we asked every one of the last three appointees on row, do you

respect established precedent. in every one of them said, we respect established precedent. my question for those men behind those walls and pillars is, did you lie to us? and how do you expect the american people to respect you if you lied to them? now, this draft language is absolutely abhorrent, the thought of leaking any document from the supreme court would have been unimaginable to me as a law clerk, but even more unimaginable would have been the language of this draft opinion, which is contemptuous of the american people and of congress. they could change the language, they could dress it up, they could smooth the edges, but the fact is, overturning roe v. wade

would leave american women abandoned and alone. and it's not just american women. one in four women in america seek an abortion. everyone of you, everyone of you knows someone -- everyone of you love someone who has had or needed an abortion. this issue is not a woman's issue. women's health care is a right, but it is about all of us, about our families, so we know what to do. we need to vote to codify roe v. wade through the women's health protection act to stop all of the restrictions, the bands, the trap laws, all of the impediments to women having access to health care and going back to an age when literally

women died, women died seeking abortions. i hope that states will do what connecticut did just last week and adopt measures that protect patients and providers who defy texas in states like it, the 23 that may impose a bounty on the restrictions and the other abhorrent laws to protect those patients and providers as connecticut did. i am proud to be from connecticut, and we should move right away to make reproductive rights part of this november's election. reproductive rights will be on the ballot, and women will vote, and they will make sure their voices are heard. thank you. sen. schumer: thank you, my

colleagues, we are focused like a laser on getting this vote shortly and on the 2022 elections. >> will use up sate up democrats who support maintaining the filibuster? >> senate republicans reacted to the possibility of roe v wade being overturned and called for congress to -- by ending the filibuster. this