Rep. Casten Votes to Defend Reproductive Health Rights Against Dangerous Assaults, Enshrine Roe v. Wade Protections into Law
Washington, DC – U.S. Representative Sean Casten (IL-06), who represents the district formerly held by Henry Hyde, today voted to defend women's constitutional right to reproductive health care with H.R. 3755, the Women's Health Protection Act, a bill he cosponsored. Amid a dangerous assault on women's basic health freedoms from state houses across the country to the U.S. Supreme Court, this landmark legislation, which Casten cosponsored, enshrines into law the vital protections of Roe v. Wade and secures the right to reproductive care for all women across America.
"In the first six months of this year we saw state legislatures pass over 90 radical anti-abortion laws that are a devastating, horrific and blatant violation of the rights of all women," said Rep. Sean Casten. "I was incredibly proud to cosponsor and vote for the Women's Health Protection Act, which takes a critical step to combat these dangerous attacks by enshrining the constitutional protections of Roe v. Wade into law. As a fierce defender of reproductive freedom in the Congressional district formerly held by Henry Hyde, I know equitable access to abortion care requires ending the Hyde amendment in addition to protecting Roe against state-level bans like the one in Texas. I will continue to work with my colleagues to defend access to affordable health care for all people, no matter where they live, where they work, or where they get their health insurance."
For years, radical state legislatures have waged an all-out assault on women's reproductive rights. 2021 is on track to be the worst legislative year for women's health rights ever, with 90 measures restricting reproductive rights enacted between January 1 and July 1, 2021– more than in any year since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. On May 19th, Texas enacted SB 8, which is now the most extreme abortion law in effect in the United States. This catastrophic legislation outlaws nearly all abortions after six weeks, with no exceptions for rape and incest, while also creating a chilling bounty system that deputizes private citizens to sue health care providers or anyone else they believe has helped a woman get an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
Shamefully, the Supreme Court voted to permit this law to go into effect, despite its flagrant violation of the Constitution, by effectively denying Texas women the ability to exercise their constitutional rights guaranteed by Roe. The Supreme Court could take further action to gut Roe's essential protections when it considers Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on December 1st.
The Women's Health Protections Act codifies the constitutional right to abortion care as found in Roe and reaffirmed in many subsequent decisions for nearly half a century. It establishes the federal statutory right for health care providers to offer abortion care and the federal right for patients to receive that care, free from state restrictions. Enshrining these essential rights is also an issue of racial and economic justice, as restrictions on reproductive care disproportionately harm women of color and women from low-income communities and perpetuate long-standing inequities.
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