Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) took action Monday to organize a vote on the Reproductive Freedom for Women Act, which would restore the national right to an abortion before the third trimester of pregnancy by enshrining the protections of the Roe v. Wade ruling.
This decision will launch the third vote this month on protecting women’s access to reproductive health care, after Votes on the law on the right to contraception And the right to IVF lawThe Republicans blocked both measures.
“Moments ago, I took the first procedural step to place the Reproductive Freedom for Women Act, co-sponsored by Senator Murray and me and all Senators on the Democratic side, on the legislative agenda,” Schumer announced on the Senate floor.
“This requires enshrining the protections of Roe v. Wade in law,” he said.
The vote is expected to take place next month because the Senate is out of town for two weeks during the last week of June and the first week of July. Senators will not be in session on Wednesday for the Juneteenth holiday and are not expected to return to work on Thursday.
Schumer sharply criticized Republicans for blocking two bills earlier this month to protect access to contraceptives and in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.
“Over the past two weeks, despite attempts to sound moderate on reproductive freedom, Senate Republicans have shown that they [a] “By voting, they are joining the MAGA extremists,” he said. “This month, Senate Republicans have already blocked legislation that protects common sense reproductive care like contraception and IVF.”
Republicans argued that the two bills introduced by Democrats on contraception and IVF were too broad and contained provisions on “poison pills” that they could not accept.
GOP senators say they support Americans’ access to contraception and artificial insemination and accuse Democrats of stoking public fears about nonexistent threats to people’s access to health care.
But Schumer referred in a speech in the Senate on Monday to a provision in the Annual defense budget bill of the House of Representatives and former President Trump’s comments to Republican lawmakers last week arguing that the threat to women’s reproductive rights is very real.
“House Republicans voted overwhelmingly on Friday to pass the defense funding bill that contains right-wing poison pills that limit our soldiers’ access to reproductive care,” he said. “And Donald Trump, in a speech to Republicans on Capitol Hill last week, attacked the Roe decision, saying abortion should be left to the states, even if they horribly restrict women’s freedoms.”
