ICYMI: At Hearing, Warren Slams Trump for Role in Criminalizing Abortion, Pushes Back on Misinformation
Warren: “The consequences (of overturning Roe v. Wade) have been disastrous. Women hemorrhaging in parking lots until they are closer to death, women airlifted to another state for an emergency abortion, women traveling from emergency room to emergency room, desperate for help, only to be turned away and left to miscarry at home.”
Warren: “Thanks to Donald Trump, doctors in nearly half the country now have to wonder if they will face criminal penalties for providing medically necessary care.”
Washington, D.C. – At a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) highlighted the dangerous consequences women have faced two years after Donald Trump’s Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Senator Warren recounted recent tragedies in states with abortion bans and warned that doctors’ ability to perform life-saving care in emergency situations is under attack. Just last week, ProPublica reported on the untimely deaths of two Georgia mothers, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, who were denied timely care following rare, but treatable, complications from medication abortion.
Senator Warren pushed back on Republican efforts to use these womens’ deaths to spread misinformation about the safety of medication abortion, which Dr. Amelia Huntsberger, Obstetrician and Gynecologist, confirmed is “extremely safe.” When asked what is to blame for the unnecessary suffering women are facing when attempting to receive emergency medical care in states with abortion bans, Dr. Huntsberger clarified that “lawmakers, who may or may not have bothered to understand the complexity of pregnancy and medical care, made laws that are impacting physicians’ ability to act and to take care of their patients.”
Senator Warren also highlighted the stakes of the Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss a case related to the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires hospitals that accept Medicare to provide stabilizing care to individuals with an emergency medical condition. Professor Michele Goodwin, JD, Georgetown University School of Law, described the Court’s failure to affirm the 200-year-old principle that federal law preempts state law as “incredibly dangerous.”
Senator Warren called for restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade to protect women's lives and bodily autonomy.
Transcript: Hearing on Chaos and Control: How Trump Criminalized Women’s Health Care
Senate Finance Committee
September 24, 2024
Senator Elizabeth Warren: So it has been two years since Donald Trump's Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade. The consequences have been disastrous. Women hemorrhaging in parking lots until they are closer to death, women airlifted to another state for an emergency abortion, women traveling from emergency room to emergency room, desperate for help, only to be turned away and left to miscarry at home.
Ms. Joshua, I am deeply sorry for what happened to you. It should not have happened to anyone. Trump's abortion bans aren't just causing unnecessary suffering, they're killing women.
Last week, we learned about Amber Nicole Thurman. Amber lived in Georgia. She was mother to a six year old boy. She hoped to become a nurse. After learning she was pregnant, she fled to another state, where she got a medication abortion back in Georgia, Amber experienced a rare complication. She waited 20 hours before doctors performed the life saving surgery that she needed, but 20 hours made it too late. Anti-abortion extremists want to twist Amber's story to spread misinformation about the safety of medication abortion.
Doctor Huntsberger, you are an OBGYN. How safe is medication abortion?
Dr. Amelia Huntsberger, Obstetrician and Gynecologist: Extremely safe. We have decades of research on mifepristone demonstrating its safety. Risk of complications are always present with any medication, but are quite low. It's also important to note that the same both medications and treatment with surgical procedures are identical for the management of early pregnancy loss or miscarriage and abortion,
Senator Warren: All right, so extremely safe, is what I heard you say. And in the rare case where there is a complication, is it treatable?
Dr. Huntsberger: Yes.
Senator Warren: Eminently treatable. But anti-abortion extremists want to misdirect and cast blame on the providers, arguing that doctors are willfully misapplying the law.
Dr Huntsberger, tell us, what's really going on here?
Dr. Huntsberger: I think it's important that instead of trying to shift blame to physicians who are practicing in a really hostile and challenging environment, for us to look at why they are in that circumstance in the first place, and that is because lawmakers, who may or may not have bothered to understand the complexity of pregnancy and medical care made laws that are impacting physicians’ ability to act and to safely take care of their patients.
Senator Warren: Okay, so the problem is not here with the physicians, it's with the lawmakers who are passing these laws. I think what we're seeing is Republican politicians who pass these medically unsound and dangerous laws that end up intimidating and confusing physicians who are just trying to provide care.
Tragically, another Georgia mother, Candy Miller, died at home because Georgia's abortion ban made her afraid to seek the medical care that she needed. Amber and Candy should be alive today.
Now we have a federal law that is designed to prevent tragedies like this from occurring, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, EMTALA, as it's known, requires hospitals to provide stabilizing care to individuals in an emergency situation. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court heard arguments about whether Idaho's near total ban on abortion conflicts with EMTALA.
Professor Goodwin. You're a constitutional law expert. The Supreme Court did not actually resolve this. They sent it back to the lower court. What should we take away from this? Does this mean we are now safe and we'll have the protection in emergency circumstances? Go ahead, Professor Goodwin.
Professor Michele Goodwin: No, we should all be deeply alarmed by the Supreme Court's procedural move, rather than substantively answering the question that federal law trumps states’ laws. It's been a principle in American law for over 200 years, and the Supreme Court's failure to be clear on that, that a state law does not preempt federal law is something that is incredibly dangerous.
Senator Warren: Okay. Dangerous. I hear alarm bills going off. The stakes couldn't be higher. Thanks to Donald Trump, doctors in nearly half the country now have to wonder if they will face criminal penalties for providing medically necessary care.
44% of women of reproductive age now live in states where they don't get to make decisions about their own bodies, and two women, undoubtedly more, have now died because they were not able to access the timely care they needed. We must restore the protection of Roe to make sure this never happens again.
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