Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is calling for Congress to create and pass legislation that would make access to abortion mandatory across the United States.
Like many of her Democrat colleagues running for the 2020 presidential nomination, Warren is reacting to Alabama banning abortion and several other states poised to follow suit, most recently Missouri.
“These extremist Republican lawmakers know what the law is — but they don’t care,” Warren wrote in a commentary posted on the Medium website on Friday. “They want to turn back the clock, outlaw abortion, and deny women access to reproductive health care. And they are hoping the Supreme Court will back their radical play.”
And she blames Trump for the nation’s increasingly pro-life stance, including that he “stole” a seat on the United States Supreme Court.
“I’ll be blunt: It just might work,” Warren wrote. “President Trump has packed the courts with extreme, anti-choice judges. Senate Republicans stole a Supreme Court seat and rammed through the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh last year in order to cement an anti-choice majority on the Supreme Court.”
Warren claims, falsely, the abortion and “reproductive rights” are guaranteed in the Constitution. The court applied the Fourth Amendment’s right for citizens’ privacy to make legal abortion on demand the law of the land.
And because Warren and other pro-abortion politicians and activists know that the Roe V. Wade decision comes under renewed scrutiny by the high court, the law could be undone.
Her answer: federal government intervention that would stifle states’ right to make abortion laws, including lifting the ban on federal funding of abortions.
“Congress should pass new federal laws that protect access to reproductive care from right-wing ideologues in the states,” Warren wrote. “Federal laws that ensure real access to birth control and abortion care for all women. Federal laws that will stand no matter what the Supreme Court does.”
Government intervention would include:
- Create federal, statutory rights that parallel the constitutional right in Roe v. Wade.
- Pass federal laws to preempt state efforts that functionally limit access to reproductive health care.
- Guarantee reproductive health coverage as part of all health coverage.
In her commentary, Warren inadvertently revealed how pro-life the nation is becoming, including 55 laws restricting abortion have been passed by state legislatures and 18 states have laws in place to kick in if the Roe decision. And 90 percent of counties in the country do not have an abortion clinic, according to data from 2014.
“This is a dark moment,” Warren wrote. “People are scared and angry. And they are right to be. But this isn’t a moment to back down – it’s time to fight back.”
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