TRANSCRIPT: At A Press Conference Marking Four Years Since Dobbs, Leader Schumer Condemned Republicans’ Ongoing Assault On Reproductive Freedom

Washington, D.C. - Today, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke at a press conference on the fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court's devastating Dobbs decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, sounding the alarm on Republicans' ongoing attacks on reproductive rights and women's health care. Senate Democrats also released a fact sheet on the Republican-made reproductive care crisis in America. Below are Leader Schumer's remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Today is a grim day for America because it's been four years since Trump's right-wing, anti-women, MAGA Supreme Court stole a woman's right to control her own body with the Dobbs decision. A decision that has had deadly consequences, making all the worse by Republicans' cruel and unrelenting assault on reproductive freedom.

Here are some of the horrifying stories that are a direct result of this ruling. Let me read these headlines:

"A Pregnant Woman at Risk of Heart Failure Couldn't Get Urgent Treatment. She Died Waiting for an Abortion."

"Arkansas Woman Was Left Hemorrhaging During Miscarriage as Doctor Says 'Our Hands Are Tied' Due to Abortion Ban."

"'Ticking Time Bomb': A Pregnant Mother Kept Getting Sicker. She Died After She Couldn't Get an Abortion in Texas."

These stories they make you both angry and sad.

There are also stories of April Newkirk from Georgia and Amanda Zurawski from Texas both of whom are with us today, thank you. Both have endured unimaginable tragedies. We thank you for your courage and your bravery to stand with us. It's not easy when you go through what you went through to come here and give testimony but you're helping us avoid this from happening with other women so thank you very, very much. Look this is not who we are-forcing women and families to go through absolute hell during one of the most private personal experiences in their lives.

This isn't care, it's control. It's punishment, not protection. Republicans are putting women's lives on the line. 20 states, 40% of the American women now are in states with abortion restrictions. 27 million women live with these bans. And let me say this, this is, it's probably different than it was 20 years ago where there were some people in both parties who were for protecting a woman's right to choose, for protecting women's health.

But now it's crystal clear the division between the Republicans and the Democrats on this issue, so vital to women, it's clear-cut. And the Republican Party relentlessly opposes the right to choose and women's health. They're trying to ban mifepristone. They're going after Planned Parenthood. They're harassing women in so many different ways, not only what we hear in Washington, but at the local level, in towns and villages, every day. We are not going to live with that.

Nearly a year ago, the Republicans passed their "Big, Ugly Bill," the largest health care cuts in American history, and make no mistake about it, that ripped away health care from women. When you defund Planned Parenthood and don't have health care, the kind of situation that we mentioned before.

So Republicans created this horror story. Democrats won't stand for it. We're going to fight them every step of the way. And then after the election, this issue will help us win back the House, win back the Senate. It will undo the damage Republicans have done and work even harder, go even further to protect women's health rights, women's rights to choose, women's rights in general.

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