Warren Calls for Gov’t to Make Access to Abortion Mandatory on Federal Level

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Friday released a statement calling on Congress to pass a slate of legislation aimed at guaranteeing abortion and other reproductive rights around the country, even if Roe v. Wade gets overturned by the Supreme court.

In the statement, posted on Medium, Warren calls on Congress to enshrine the right to abortion in federal statute, in case Roe v. Wade is overturned and the current federal right to abortion is taken away. She also calls for a repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for most abortions, and federal legislation preventing states from passing medically unnecessary restrictions on abortion clinics.

She also proposed a reversal of the Trump administration’s domestic gag rule, which bars providers that receive federal family planning funds from performing or referring patients for abortions.

The Supreme Court has said in Roe v. Wade and in the 1992 decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey that states cannot ban abortion prior to viability, when a fetus can survive outside the womb, however, there is no federal law guaranteeing the right to an abortion and the Fourth Amendment does not directly state that abortion is a constitutional right, even though it could be justified as a constitutional right under the Amendment’s protection of privacy.

READ MORE: Missouri Bans Abortion of Unborn Children Older Than 8 Weeks

Warren’s statement came amid a wave of strict anti-abortion laws in several states. On Wednesday, Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama signed into law a bill banning nearly all abortions in the state, with no exceptions for rape or incest. On Thursday, the Missouri state Senate passed a bill banning the procedure at eight weeks (the bill now goes back to the state House for approval). As the authors of the Alabama bill had previously stated, the law is supposed to draw the Supreme Court’s attention to Roe v. Wade and make them revisit the previous decision.