NWLC Comments on the Women’s Health Protection Act Failing – Again – to Pass the Senate
(Washington, D.C.) Today, anti-abortion senators yet again blocked consideration of the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA). This is the second time this year that WHPA has been brought to the floor for a vote in the Senate, after being passed by the House of Representatives in September 2021. WHPA is federal legislation that would create a federal safeguard against abortion bans and medically unnecessary restrictions on abortion.
The following is a statement by Fatima Goss Graves, President and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC):
“With today’s failed WHPA vote, only nine days after seeing that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, it’s clear that the institutions set up to protect the people and our fundamental rights have let us down. Both an extremist Supreme Court majority and a group of anti-abortion senators have commandeered our systems of justice to bypass the will of the people, pushing our country dangerously close to losing the right to abortion. Equal access to abortion care—everywhere—is essential to social and economic participation, reproductive autonomy, and the right to determine our own lives. Restrictions and bans on abortion limit security and prosperity for all of us, and most especially communities who already face barriers to accessing health care. The extremist Justices and senators are turning their backs on the communities who have long faced systemic oppression and inequities. We commend our champions who pushed this bill forward in the Senate. Our mission has never been more critical: it’s on all of us – from local communities to state governments to federal policymakers – to continue our fight for abortion access for everyone in this country and marshaling all the government’s resources in the pursuit of freedom, autonomy, and justice.”