WASHINGTON — Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, issued the following statement on the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion:
“One year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, the landscape for reproductive freedom across the United States is bleaker than ever. Abortion is banned or inaccessible in 15 states, eliminating access in large parts of the country. Tens of thousands of people have not been able to have abortions they needed. Approximately 40 percent of obstetricians and gynecologists have faced constraints caring for patients. In state after state, stories have emerged of people nearly dying waiting for the reproductive health care they need and forced to continue pregnancies against their will.
“This is nothing less than a human rights crisis. Millions of Americans are denied the intensely personal, essential freedom to make decisions about our own bodies and our own futures. The end of legal abortion has exacerbated wealth inequality and widened the health disparities between white people and people of color — a particularly deadly gap, given the United States’ Black maternal mortality crisis.
“One year after the Dobbs decision, we remain in a public health emergency — but the movements for reproductive rights, health, and justice have never given up, and neither will progressives in Congress. Abortion funds across the South and Midwest continue to support their communities, and people continue to give to keep them going. Lawyers and organizers have mobilized to create legal defense. Reproductive justice champions in state legislatures have passed laws to codify the right to abortion and protect doctors.
“We can and must follow their example. The CPC will continue to advocate for the Biden administration to use all its executive authority to protect and expand access to abortion and contraception. We will continue to push for the passage of legislation to protect the right to abortion in federal law, as Democrats did this week to force a vote on that bill, as well as the right to contraception. As one of the one in four women in this country who have had an abortion, I cannot — and will not — give up this fight, and neither will my CPC colleagues. One year after Dobbs, the work is only beginning.”