On Four-Year Anniversary of Dobbs, Senator Murray Vows to Make Suffering of Women Under Republican Abortion Bans Impossible to Ignore, Pushes to Restore Abortion Rights in All[...]

***WATCH: Senator Murray's remarks***

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, joined Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), at a press conference on the four-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's disastrous decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, highlighting how the Trump administration and Republicans are sowing chaos for women and health care providers across the country through ongoing attacks on reproductive rights and women's health care, alongside escalating efforts to enact a nationwide abortion ban.

In her remarks, Senator Murray highlighted the many ways President Trump is assaulting women's reproductive freedoms and how Republicans continue to press for a nationwide abortion ban in every way possible.

Senator Murray's remarks, as delivered, are below:

"Four years ago-Republicans ripped away the constitutional right to abortion. And every day since, they have all been either doubling down with the most extreme, anti-abortion policies imaginable, or trying to whistle past the graveyard that they helped to dig.

"Look, Senate Republicans voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh and they knew that meant voting to overturn Roe.

"Republicans may be trying to suggest the end of Roe and all the attacks on abortion that followed were no big deal. But what they are really saying, is that they are not listening to women. Because women all across this country are now having to face the nightmare Republicans ushered in, and it is turning lives upside down.

"You don't have to take my word for it, all you have to do is listen. All you have to do is listen. And I mean that. I hope everyone here will go back and listen to the witnesses who spoke out at the forum Democrats hosted just yesterday. Because the stories we heard were shocking and they were heartbreaking.

"One witness learned her baby had a genetic defect that meant their bones would break every time she moved too much-and that her baby would suffocate trying to take their first breath. Her doctors could do little for her-except recommend she seek a second opinion in another state.

"We heard from another woman who was told her baby's brain and skull had not developed, and her baby wouldn't live long past birth. And then she was told there was nothing her doctors could do to help end her doomed pregnancy. Because of Republican abortion bans she had to stay pregnant for months, knowing that it would end in tragedy. She had to deliver the baby she knew would not survive, and she had to watch her daughter suffer and die four hours after she was born.

"All because Republican politicians took any other choice away from her. And now those same Republicans who voted for Brett Kavanuagh have the gall to try and sweep stories like this under the rug.

"Well, there is just no way on God's green earth that is ever going to happen, this is not going to get swept under the rug. No woman ever forgets being investigated for her miscarriage. She doesn't forget being forced to death's door before she could get medical treatment. She doesn't forget being forced into motherhood against her will. And she doesn't forget being forced to carry a doomed pregnancy-forced to watch her child die after delivery.

"I am so grateful to everyone who is speaking out because I know these are incredibly hard stories to share. But it's on the rest of us to make sure they are impossible to forget.

"And as long as Democrats have anything to say about it, we are going to make sure these stories are impossible for Republicans to ignore as well.

"We will keep lifting up women's voices. We will keep sharing women's stories. And we will keep fighting to restore the rights that Republicans took away-in all 50 states."

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