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REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Garcia) for 5 minutes.
Ms. GARCIA of Texas. Madam Speaker, women's freedom to choose their reproductive care is under attack by politicians who want to control their decisions.
A woman's freedom to make a decision on this very private, personal matter should be respected and should be left to her alone together with her family and her doctor and guided by her faith.
Politicians and government should have no control. Yet 3 weeks ago, my home State of Texas passed one of the strictest abortion bills in the country which on its face is unconstitutional.
Politicians in Texas are trying to control women's freedom to choose and the progress that we have made in the last 50 years. It also allows anyone--anyone--in the country to file a lawsuit against a provider, family, friend, clergy, Uber driver, Lyft driver, and anyone who assists a woman seeking an abortion. If successful, the plaintiffs get
$10,000.
In fact, just last week two individuals, not even from Texas, filed lawsuits against a doctor from San Antonio who publicly acknowledged that he had performed an abortion outside the legal limits of this Texas law. One of the plaintiffs even admitted that his reason for filing this suit was the $10,000 bounty. He needed the money.
This is outrageous and must be stopped. Texas already has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.
Before this law entered into effect, my home State already required women to get mandatory sonograms, and we also have a 24-hour waiting period. Now this law makes existing restrictions even worse.
Texas has almost 7 million women aged 15 to 49 out of a total of 75 million in this age group in the entire country. So we make up now one in ten of the U.S. women of reproductive age. All these women all over Texas now have no choices. Now, effectively, Roe v. Wade is meaningless.
Madam Speaker, women's freedom to choose what to do with their bodies is hanging by a thread, and Congress can't sit idle.
Last week, I visited Planned Parenthood's headquarters in my district and heard horrific stories about how this draconian law is affecting women in my region.
On September 1, the day that Texas law took effect, one Texas woman learned she was about 5 weeks pregnant--and still within the new legal limits in the Texas law to obtain an abortion in Texas. But at the same visit she also learned that she had COVID-19. By the time she would finish her quarantine period it would be too late to get an abortion in Texas and she would then have to go out of State for care.
On September 2, Planned Parenthood providers saw a patient for an ultrasound that showed she was under 6 weeks and still within the new legal limits of the Texas law. When she came back the next day after the State mandated 24-hour waiting period, the second sonogram showed she had passed the new legal limit. Overnight she lost access to an abortion in Texas.
Here is another story. A few days after the Texas law took effect, a woman walked into the Planned Parenthood's health center after trying to self-manage an abortion. Having no money or resources, she had turned to the internet where she found some abortion tea. She took it, and it didn't work. The ultrasound showed she was past the new legal limit, and doctors in Texas couldn't help her. She too was now forced to seek care out of State or to continue with her pregnancy.
Then, Madam Speaker, I am sure you heard about tropical storm Nicholas. The storm made landfall during some patients' State mandated 24-hour waiting period. They were hunkered down. They couldn't get to the clinic, and the clinic was closed. They lost their right to an abortion during that time period.
Another case I heard of was from a 44-year-old patient, already a parent, who didn't think she could have any more children but learned that she was pregnant at 7 weeks, just past the legal limits of the new Texas law. This patient was never planning to stay with her current partner and now, due to this pregnancy, feels pressured to remain in that relationship.
Madam Speaker, these cases are heartbreaking, and I am sure we will hear more and worse because women's lives are at risk. And although I am encouraged to know the Justice Department is acting on this, Congress needs to act, and this is why we must pass H.R. 3755.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 164
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