Heinrich Statement on Dobbs Decision Anniversary

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) released the following statement ahead of the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and stripped access to abortion care for millions of Americans and denied women the freedom to make their own health care decisions.

“One year ago, the Supreme Court stripped away a woman’s constitutional right to make her own health care decisions. In the hours and months that followed, we watched as state and county politicians enacted extreme bans on abortion and reproductive care – often without exceptions for lifesaving health care or cases of rape and incest. And we have heard countless stories of how these bans have directly endangered women’s lives and rights to make their own health care decisions.

“We have also seen how the Dobbs decision opened the door to ideological attacks that put politics ahead of science. That includes a federal court decision undermining the FDA’s authority to approve safe and effective medication—from the medication abortion pill, Mifepristone, to cancer treatment and diabetes medicine.

“Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, I believe that a woman has a right to control her own body and make her own health care decisions. And I trust health care providers and medical professionals to make science-based decisions in the best interest of women and their families. 

“We must be clear about the horrible, real-life impacts that the Dobbs decision has had on countless women in our country. We cannot accept this new normal. I won’t stop fighting to restore Roe and the federal, constitutional right to abortion care.”

Background:           

• In May 2023, Heinrich cosponsored the Protecting Service Members and Military Families’ Access to Health Care Act to codify the Department of Defense’s (DOD) February 16, 2023 policy to ensure service members and their families can access non-covered reproductive health care, including abortion services, regardless of the state in which they are stationed.
• In April 2023, Heinrich joined an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the case of Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, in support of the Biden administration’s appeal of Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s ruling that suspends the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) more than 20-year-old approval of mifepristone.
• In April 2023, Heinrich, as Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, presided over a hearing on the President’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Heinrich expressed his strongly held view that the “decisions the FDA makes, whether approving a medical device or approving a new drug, must be guided by science and not by political pressure.”
• In a statement in April 2023, Senator Heinrich said that a recent federal court ruling by a judge in Texas has “undermined the FDA’s safety and efficacy determination of Mifepristone. And with it, he has undermined the FDA’s authority to determine the safety and efficacy of all medications – from insulin to cancer treatment.”
• In March 2023, Heinrich cosponsored the Women’s Health Protection Act to prohibit states from imposing restrictions that jeopardize access to abortion earlier in pregnancy, including many of the state-level restrictions in place prior to Dobbs, such as arbitrary waiting periods, medically unnecessary mandatory ultrasounds, or requirements to provide medically inaccurate information. The bill would also ensure that later in pregnancy, states cannot limit access to abortion if it would jeopardize the life or health of the mother and protect the ability to travel out of state for an abortion, which has become increasingly common in recent years.
• In September 2022, Heinrich urged the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to take immediate action to safeguard women’s privacy and their ability to safely and confidentially get the health care they need.
• In September 2021, Heinrich joined a group of 48 Democrats in the U.S. Senate and 188 in the U.S. House of Representatives that filed a bicameral amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold nearly 50 years of precedent in Roe v. Wade and protect the constitutional right to abortion care.