Press Release California
Press Release
NARAL Pro-Choice America Celebrates Reintroduction of Women’s Health Protection Act
Washington, DC — Today, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Representatives Judy Chu (D-CA), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Veronica Escobar (D-TX) reintroduced the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA). WHPA safeguards the federal right to abortion should Roe v. Wade fall, creating a right for healthcare providers to provide abortion care and a corresponding right for people to receive that care, free from bans and medically unnecessary restrictions that single out abortion and block access to care.
NARAL Pro-Choice America Chief Campaigns and Advocacy Officer Christian LoBue released the following statement in response:
“We’re in the midst of an all-out assault on reproductive freedom thanks to the anti-choice movement’s desperate effort to advance their agenda of power and control—and Roe v. Wade hangs in the balance. Anti-choice politicians are working around the clock to decimate access to abortion care and to criminalize pregnant people and the doctors who provide them care. Congress must take swift action to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act to protect abortion access and ensure that all people can make their own important decisions about their health, lives, families, and futures.”
This year alone, lawmakers hostile to abortion have introduced, advanced, or passed over 300 bills undermining abortion access—some going as far as to criminalize pregnant people and doctors who provide abortion care. These anti-choice politicians have ramped up their blatantly unconstitutional attacks on abortion access in hopes of rolling back or overturning Roe v. Wade.
Now, the anti-choice, anti-freedom supermajority on the Supreme Court solidified by the confirmations of Trump’s anti-choice justices—Amy Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch—has taken up a direct challenge to Roe. The Court has agreed to hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a challenge to Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban that violates 50 years of Supreme Court precedent. This direct threat to the future of Roe v. Wade underscores the urgent need for Congress to pass WHPA and protect the right to abortion throughout the United States.
Although Roe still stands, for now, the reality is that its promises have long gone unfulfilled for many. Restrictions on abortion care and bans on abortion coverage block or push access out of reach for many. These burdens disproportionately fall on those already facing the most significant barriers to accessing care due to systemic racism and inequities, including Black, Indigenous and people of color, Latinx and AAPI people, those working to make ends meet, members of the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, young people, those living in rural communities, and people with disabilities.
Despite the anti-choice movement’s relentless efforts to restrict reproductive freedom and ban abortion, the vast majority of Americans support reproductive freedom. Polling has found that 77% support Roe v. Wade, and there is no state in the country where banning abortion is popular.
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For over 50 years, NARAL Pro-Choice America and its network of state affiliates and chapters have fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom—including access to abortion, contraception, and paid family leave—for every body. NARAL is powered by its more than 2.5 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 7 in 10 Americans who believe every person should have the freedom to make the best decision for themselves about if, when, and how to raise a family.