Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Republicans Escalating Their War On Women’s Reproductive Freedoms

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor to condemn the Republican-led Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act as a partisan attack on reproductive rights, medical professionals, and American women. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Look, it’s Donald Trump’s first week as president, and Republicans are already escalating their war on women’s reproductive freedoms.

They didn't wait long. The Republican desire to impose politicians’ views on women's health and substitute their judgment for the judgment of the woman, her family, and her doctor, continues. There are many different permutations and combinations of this, but it always takes the woman's right away and lets some politician, for some ideological reason, decide.

This week, Senate Republicans will advance their so-called born alive bill, a bill we have all seen before, and which the Senate has squarely rejected in the past.

The bill is deeply pernicious because it attacks women’s health care through false narratives and outright fear mongering. It seeks to make something illegal that is already illegal.

In essence, the Republicans’ bill will substitute the judgement of qualified medical professionals, and the wishes of millions of families, with ultra-right ideology. It's the long hand of injustice reaching down and hurting women from afar.

And so much of the legislation is passed, frankly, by men who have really no understanding of what women go through when they're going through difficult situations, like the one my colleague from Washington state has outlined.

This would harm the ability of medical professionals to provide healthcare based on evidence and on science.

It would expose medical professionals to the risk of punishment and prosecution if they don’t comply with the hard-right.

So, we’re here because we need to expose this bill exactly for what it is: myth-based fear mongering. It’s an attack on reproductive care. The anti-choice movement keeps trying to come up with these scenarios to try and scare people, but they misstate the facts and misstate the evidence.

This bill is clear. It's an attack on reproductive care. It’s anti-women, anti-family, anti-science.

I'll tell my Republican colleagues this: Democrats will oppose any attempt to erode access to high-quality and safe reproductive care. Democrats will continue to fight for America’s women, America’s doctors, and America’s families, who sometimes have to make heartbreaking, difficult decisions when serious complications arise during pregnancy.

That's what makes this bill so, so horrible. It basically takes a woman who is in a very serious, difficult situation and tries to use her as political football. That's a bad, bad thing.

So, we should resoundingly reject this deeply partisan bill when it comes to the floor later this week.

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