WASHINGTON DC — Last week, a draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization showed the Supreme Court is considering overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, thereby allowing states to ban abortion entirely. Ahead of the anticipated ruling, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer held a vote on a narrowed Women’s Health Protection Act yesterday, which ultimately did not pass.
Following the Senate’s vote, 40 reproductive rights, health, and justice organizations issued the following:
Most Americans support Congressional action to guarantee abortion rights. Yet yesterday, the Senate was unable to pass legislation to protect access to abortion ahead of the Dobbs ruling. This calls us back to January when Senators employed the filibuster to block critical voting rights legislation supported by the majority. Again and again, the rotten structures of our democracy deny our federal legislature the ability to enact the will of the people.
Now is the time to fight like hell and address the structural inequities that hold us back. Anti-democratic and anti-abortion actors are reaping the success of their coordinated, well-funded, and dangerous GOP-led strategy to deny people — primarily Black, Brown, Indigenous and all people of color, as well immigrants, young people, disabled people, the LGBTQI+ community, people with low incomes, and those living in rural and other medically underserved areas — their right to vote and access abortion. These efforts are one in the same.
We need to fill the seats of power with senators who will fight for abortion access and ensure they are empowered, procedurally, to pass critical abortion and voting rights legislation. That means putting every tool back on the table — including filibuster elimination. While the filibuster has prevented passage of anti-abortion legislation in the past, we are under no illusion that clinging to the filibuster will protect us now.
As leaders fighting for abortion access, we join together to unequivocally state: Stop defending the filibuster in our name.
Signatories on the statement include:
Tamika Middleton, Managing Director | Women's March
Katie Quinonez | Women's Health Center of West Virginia
Whole Woman's Health Alliance
Whole Woman's Health
Renee Bracey | We Testify
Leah Torres, MD | West Alabama Women's Center, Inc
Kimberly Inez McGuire, Executive Director | URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity
UltraViolet
State Innovation Exchange
Lisa Maldonado, MA, MPH | Reproductive Health Access Project
Erin Matson | Reproaction
Tara Romano, Executive Director | Pro-Choice North Carolina
Pro-Choice Minnesota
Dr. Jamila Perritt, President & CEO | Physicians for Reproductive Health
Garin Marschall | Patient Forward
Jocelyn Frye, President | National Partnership for Women & Families
Diane Horvath MD MPH | Partners in Abortion Care
NARAL Pro-Choice America
Lupe M. Rodríguez | National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice
Andrea Miller | National Institute for Reproductive Health
Sheila Katz, CEO | National Council of Jewish Women
Dana Sussman, Acting Executive Director | National Advocates for Pregnant Women
MomsRising
Midwest Access Coalition
Marcela Howell, President and CEO | In Our Own Voice: National Black Women's Reproductive Justice Agenda
Jill E. Adams, JD | If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice
Kelly Blanchard | Ibis Reproductive Health
Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights (GRR!)
Healthy Futures, PC
Eleanor Smeal, President | Feminist Majority
Kirsten Moore | EMAA Project
Disabled and Pro Choice Coalition
Megan Jeyifo | Chicago Abortion Fund
Jamie L. Manson | Catholics for Choice
Tammy Boyd | Black Women’s Health Imperative
Aimee Arrambide | Avow
Morgan Hopkins and Jodie Lawton, Interim Executive Directors | All* Above All Action Fund
Diana Thu-Thao Rhodes | Advocates for Youth
Lizz Winstead, Founder and Chief Creative Officer | Abortion Access Front
Heidi Sieck | #VOTEPROCHOICE