09.19.24

Cantwell Joins Resolution Asserting That All Americans Have a Right to Lifesaving Health Care – Including Emergency Abortion Care

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) joined a group of 41 senators in announcing a resolution expressing that every person has the basic right to emergency health care -- including abortion care -- regardless of where they live.

“Pregnant women in Idaho who need emergency care should not have to be airlifted to Washington or another state because doctors are afraid to provide critical abortion care,” said Sen. Cantwell. “Abortion bans have harmed women. These laws are dangerous and immoral and have to change.”

Strict abortion bans enacted after the overturning of Roe v. Wade have created confusion around the treatment medical professionals can provide, even when a pregnant patient’s life or health is in danger. Providers fear they could be sued or prosecuted for providing abortion care, or even miscarriage treatment. 

According to a report released this week, a 28-year-old Georgia woman died in 2022 after doctors delayed a life-saving abortion. A state board concluded that her death was preventable. Another Georgia woman died because she was afraid to see a provider due to the abortion ban; the state board said that her death was also preventable. Women in other states have reported suffering extreme pain and anguish after being forced to wait for care. 

In July, Sen. Cantwell, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and 14 women Democratic senators released a new report, Two Years Post-Dobbs: The Nationwide Impacts of Abortion Bans. The report, based on interviews and discussions with more than 80 health care providers and advocates on the front lines, detailed how the Dobbs decision is harming women’s health care in states across the U.S.  Among other troubling findings, the report detailed how abortion bans endanger women facing medical emergencies.  For example, the co-chair of the Idaho Physician Well-Being Action Collaborative said, “We’ve been flying out about a patient a week to Utah or Oregon or Washington, because the fetus is nonviable, or the life of the mother is at risk.”  The report also noted the conclusions of a STAT News analysis of abortions in Texas, which found that the number of women needing abortions in Texas is at least 400 per year for life emergencies and 2,400 per year for physical health risks – but that just 34 legal abortions were recorded in Texas during a six-month period in 2023.

Sen. Cantwell continues to fight hard to defend reproductive freedom in Washington state and nationwide. A full timeline of her actions since a draft of the Dobbs decision was leaked in spring 2022, making clear the Supreme Court’s intent to overturn the longstanding reproductive care precedent established by Roe v. Wade, is available HERE.

The full text of the resolution is below.

Resolution Expressing the sense of the Senate that every person has the basic right to emergency health care, including abortion care:

Whereas bans and restrictions on reproductive health care, including abortion care, put the health and lives of women at risk;

Whereas State laws that purport to ban and restrict abortion in emergency circumstances force medical providers to decide between withholding necessary, stabilizing medical care from a patient experiencing a medical emergency or facing criminal prosecution, and put the lives, health, and futures of patients at risk;

Whereas the harms of criminalizing medical providers providing emergency health care or women receiving emergency health care are far-reaching, and providers and patients who are Black, Indigenous, people of color, immigrants, people with low incomes, and LGBTQI+ individuals are more likely to be put under the scrutiny of the legal system;

Whereas the harms associated with abortion bans and other restrictions on reproductive health care have a disproportionate impact on women of color, specifically Black and Indigenous pregnant patients, who are more likely to experience life-threatening pregnancy complications; and

Whereas the chaos and confusion caused by abortion bans and restrictions can dissuade providers from providing appropriate medical care to patients, including in emergency care situations such as heart failure or high blood pressure, premature rupture of membranes, severe obstetric hemorrhage or infection, sepsis, placenta previa (where the placenta attaches to the cervix), and in some cases missed miscarriages, among many other emergency medical conditions:

Now, therefore, be it Resolved,

That it is the sense of the Senate that every person has the basic right to emergency health care, including abortion care.