‘Has Only Gotten Worse’: Lizzie Fletcher Lambasts Healthcare Crisis Facing Pregnant Women

last year

During House floor remarks on Wednesday, Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX) spoke about the health crisis facing pregnant women.

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Transcript

00:00Ms. Wescher is recognized. Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you, Congresswoman

00:05Scanlon, for your work on the Rules Committee, for your focus on this issue

00:11this morning, and in response as what we would do with the previous question. I've

00:16just returned to Washington from my home state of Texas, where I am sorry to

00:20report that the health care crisis we have been experiencing has only gotten

00:25worse. Pregnant women in crisis, having miscarriages, having complications that

00:31put their health and their lives at risk, are being turned away from hospital

00:36emergency rooms because the extreme laws that our state legislators have passed

00:42banning abortion of just about any kind. Doctors and hospitals have asked for

00:48clear guidance about when and how they can take care of these patients. These

00:53American citizens who are suffering in Texas and states like it that have

00:59passed similar, vague, extreme laws criminalizing doctors, women, and

01:05pregnancy itself. Pregnant women have limited access to no access to care and

01:13even to information. This puts their lives and health at risk, including their

01:19ability to have children in the future. Pregnant women have shown up at

01:24emergency rooms only to be told to come back later when they are closer to death.

01:29Closer to death, that's the standard in Texas. Think about that. And then we have

01:37cities and towns passing ordinances saying that women cannot drive through

01:43those cities if they're headed to New Mexico or to other places where they can

01:47get abortion care, if perhaps that is their purpose in traveling through. And

01:53despite requests for clear guidance about what the Texas law means, neither

01:58the state of Texas nor the Texas Supreme Court will provide it, leaving women and

02:04doctors to risk jail time and more to get the health care that they need. More

02:12than 50 years ago, a similar patchwork of restrictions in different states led

02:16women and doctors groups to petition the courts to guarantee the right of

02:20Americans to make their own fully informed decisions about whether, when,

02:26and how to be pregnant. They challenged the Texas law in a case brought by two

02:32young Texas women that went all the way up to the Supreme Court, a case we know

02:37as Roe v. Wade, which set out a framework to protect the health, privacy, and

02:43dignity of women in America. Two years ago this month, the Supreme Court

02:48reversed that 50-year precedent. The chaos that has followed will continue until

02:53this Congress acts, and we must. We must pass the Women's Health Protection Act, a

02:59bill to restore the framework that Americans have relied on for the last 50

03:03years, providing a federal statutory right to reproductive health care,

03:07including abortion care, free from medically unnecessary restrictions. And

03:12that is why I urge my colleagues to vote no on the previous question so that

03:17we can bring up the Women's Health Protection Act today. We passed it in the

03:21last Congress twice. We have to pass it again and get it to President Biden's

03:25desk so that we can protect the health, privacy, dignity, and freedom of American

03:31women. I yield back the balance of my time.

‘Has Only Gotten Worse’: Lizzie Fletcher Lambasts Healthcare Crisis Facing Pregnant Women

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