Blumenthal Statement on Vote Against Republican-Led Unconstitutional 20-Week Abortion Ban

(Washington, DC) - Today, U.S. Senator Blumenthal (D-Conn.) voted against the Republican bill to ban abortion after 20 weeks, which failed to clear a procedural hurdle this morning. Last night, Blumenthal spoke on the Senate floor against Senate Republicans’ failure to address the real issues facing Congress, as they opted instead to push for unconstitutional, anti-women legislation.

“There are so many momentous issues facing our nation today, and that is the challenge that we should be facing in the United States Senate. And yet…we [vote] on a bill that is divisive, dangerous and doomed to failure.”

“There have been incessant and constant attempts by politicians to substitute their own judgment for [a woman’s] and for her doctor and for her family's and for her religious advisors. These decisions should be a woman's to make. And the onslaught on women's health care unfortunately has been a fact of life in this nation… The legislation represents an unconstitutional interference as a matter of policy and law with a woman's right to choose the care that is best for her and the failure to recognize the many complex factors that may be involved in that decision, medical late-term abortion. The bill would place in her way a host of unnecessary and unwise, burdensome requirements.”

“Simply put, women's health care decisions should be left to women, their families, themselves, their doctors…that is the essence of the constitutionally protected right of privacy that underlies all these rights. It is the right to be left alone from men and women in this chamber who would intrude and invade that right.”

Watch Senator Blumenthal’s floor speech here.

Full remarks as delivered are below.

Madam President, I want to second the very powerful remarks made by my colleague from Indiana. In Connecticut, what I hear again and again and again is the need for [the Senate] to address jobs and the economy. They're talking about putting people back to work, moving our economy forward. That is what I have sought to do from day one in the United States Senate and what I will continue to fight to do. That's what we should be doing through reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank, toward creating more jobs in an infrastructure program worthy of the name, repairing and reinvigorating our roads, bridges, ports and airports, our railroads which need to be made more safe and reliable. And that's what we should be doing in programs for veterans, particularly veterans’ health care, putting our veterans to work. Programs that provide for skill training and job opportunities for them.

There are so many momentous issues facing our nation today, and that is the challenge that we should be facing in the United States Senate. And yet, tomorrow we will be voting on a bill that is divisive, dangerous and doomed to failure. And even today we're spending valuable time debating it. The bill before us is both unconscionable and unconstitutional. It is, in fact, a waste of time because tomorrow it will be defeated, in effect. So we are engaged in a political charade here. The timing may not be accidental, but there is no good time for an unconstitutional, blatantly and plainly unconstitutional proposal. Sadly, it is only the latest  in a long line of unconstitutional proposals since the United States Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, which enshrined a woman's constitutionally protected right to make her own reproductive decisions.

There have been incessant and constant attempts by politicians to substitute their own judgment for hers and for her doctor and for her family's and for her religious advisors. These decisions should be a woman's to make. And the onslaught on women's health care unfortunately has been a fact of life in this nation. The bill before us now would ban abortion care after 20 weeks of pregnancy except for so-called exceptions. The inadequacy of those exceptions alone doom this bill to unconstitutional status. The legislation represents an unconstitutional interference as a matter of policy and law with a woman's right to choose the care that is best for her and the failure to recognize the many complex factors that may be involved in that decision, medical late-term abortion. The bill would place in her way a host of unnecessary and unwise, burdensome requirements.

In effect, this bill would force women, including all who have been through the traumatic experience of rape or incest, to meet a combination, a myriad of requirements. In many cases the bill would require survivors of heinous crimes to make multiple appointments with multiple providers before having the right to reproductive care. And forcing her to relive traumatic experiences before having the benefit of those services. It would place numerous nonmedical requirements on doctors, such as forcing them to determine whether survivors of rape or incest have reported their experience to appropriate law enforcement entities, potentially forcing doctors to choose between criminal penalties and doing what is best for a patient's health, which is why the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists oppose this measure.

None of these requirements placed on women or their doctors are rooted in science, health or safety. None of these requirements is consistent with the constitutionally protected right to access reproductive care and abortion. Simply put, women's health care decisions should be left to women, their families, themselves, their doctors, and themselves. That is the essence of the constitutionally protected right of privacy that underlies all these rights. It is the right to be left alone from men and women in this chamber who would intrude and invade that right.

This measure also implicitly encourages an ongoing, indeed intensifying, assault on women's health care among the states. Many other unconstitutional and unconscionable attacks on women's health care are increasing at the state level, making it harder for women to access reproductive health care in general. There is an increasing drumbeat of regulations and restrictions that attack women's health care and make it harder to access as state governments pass more regulations. And those regulations number now 230 in the past five years. They are nothing more than embarrassing attempts to deny women's health care in the guise of invasive and unnecessary medical tests, arbitrary building regulations and financially unsustainable procedures. That's why Senator Baldwin and I have proposed the Women's Health Protection Act, joined by 31 of our colleagues to make sure that those state laws are stopped before they cause the cost, fear and uncertainty as they are bound to do, as they have done in many states around the country.

These state laws are beyond wrong. They are dangerous to women’s health care. And my hope is that we will be proactive in protecting a woman's right to care, not encourage the worst of state practices that are embodied in these restrictive state laws.

Finally, Mr. President, I am dismayed that the House of Representatives actually has taken a step toward gutting a measure designed to help veterans. The Border Jobs for Veterans Act of 2015, a bipartisan measure that I have cosponsored with my colleague, Senator Flake, designed to do just what the title says, utilize the skills and expertise of our veterans to help fill vacancies at our borders. To use veterans to stop illegal immigration, that bill has been gutted and, unfortunately, has been made a vehicle to deny health care to women. The provisions of this transformed legislation are a disservice to our veterans. I thought veterans’ legislation would be out of bounds for this fight. Sadly, apparently not.

So I urge my colleagues to find more productive ways to use our time, to address the need to expand job opportunities, to move our economy forward, to drive economic growth. A bipartisan goal that we should all share, to reauthorize the Export-Import bank and to make sure that we serve the best instincts of this nation and preserve our constitution from these unwarranted attacks. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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