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40 Reproductive Rights, Health and Justice Organizations Demand the Senate "Stop Defending the Filibuster in Our Name"

Last week, a draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization showed the Supreme Court is considering overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, thereby allowing states to ban abortion entirely. Ahead of the anticipated ruling, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer held a vote on a narrowed Women's Health Protection Act yesterday, which ultimately did not pass.

Following the Senate's vote, 40 reproductive rights, health, and justice organizations issued the following:

WASHINGTON

Last week, a draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization showed the Supreme Court is considering overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, thereby allowing states to ban abortion entirely. Ahead of the anticipated ruling, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer held a vote on a narrowed Women's Health Protection Act yesterday, which ultimately did not pass.

Following the Senate's vote, 40 reproductive rights, health, and justice organizations issued the following:

Most Americans support Congressional action to guarantee abortion rights. Yet yesterday, the Senate was unable to pass legislation to protect access to abortion ahead of the Dobbs ruling. This calls us back to January when Senators employed the filibuster to block critical voting rights legislation supported by the majority. Again and again, the rotten structures of our democracy deny our federal legislature the ability to enact the will of the people.

Now is the time to fight like hell and address the structural inequities that hold us back. Anti-democratic and anti-abortion actors are reaping the success of their coordinated, well-funded, and dangerous GOP-led strategy to deny people -- primarily Black, Brown, Indigenous and all people of color, as well immigrants, young people, disabled people, the LGBTQI+ community, people with low incomes, and those living in rural and other medically underserved areas -- their right to vote and access abortion. These efforts are one in the same.

We need to fill the seats of power with senators who will fight for abortion access and ensure they are empowered, procedurally, to pass critical abortion and voting rights legislation. That means putting every tool back on the table -- including filibuster elimination. While the filibuster has prevented passage of anti-abortion legislation in the past, we are under no illusion that clinging to the filibuster will protect us now.

As leaders fighting for abortion access, we join together to unequivocally state: Stop defending the filibuster in our name.

Signatories on the statement include:

Tamika Middleton, Managing Director | Women's March

Katie Quinonez | Women's Health Center of West Virginia

Whole Woman's Health Alliance

Whole Woman's Health

Renee Bracey | We Testify

UltraViolet

Leah Torres, MD | West Alabama Women's Center, Inc

Kimberly Inez McGuire, Executive Director | URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity

State Innovation Exchange

Lisa Maldonado, MA, MPH | Reproductive Health Access Project

Erin Matson | Reproaction

Tara Romano, Executive Director | Pro-Choice North Carolina

Pro-Choice Minnesota

Dr. Jamila Perritt, President & CEO | Physicians for Reproductive Health

Garin Marschall | Patient Forward

Jocelyn Frye, President | National Partnership for Women & Families

Diane Horvath MD MPH | Partners in Abortion Care

NARAL Pro-Choice America

Lupe M. Rodriguez | National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice

Andrea Miller | National Institute for Reproductive Health

Sheila Katz, CEO | National Council of Jewish Women

Dana Sussman, Acting Executive Director | National Advocates for Pregnant Women

MomsRising

Midwest Access Coalition

Marcela Howell, President and CEO | In Our Own Voice: National Black Women's Reproductive Justice Agenda

Jill E. Adams, JD | If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice

Kelly Blanchard | Ibis Reproductive Health

Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights (GRR!)

Healthy Futures, PC | Healthy Futures, PC

Eleanor Smeal, President | Feminist Majority

Kirsten Moore | EMAA Project

Disabled and Pro Choice Coalition

Kimberly Inez McGuire, Executive Director | URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity

Megan Jeyifo | Chicago Abortion Fund

Jamie L. Manson | Catholics for Choice

Tammy Boyd | Black Women's Health Imperative

Aimee Arrambide | Avow

Morgan Hopkins and Jodie Lawton, Interim Executive Directors | All* Above All Action Fund

Diana Thu-Thao Rhodes | Advocates for Youth

Lizz Winstead, Founder and Chief Creative Officer | Abortion Access Front

Heidi Sieck | #VOTEPROCHOICE

Fix Our Senate is a coalition of more than 70 organizations who are joined together to ensure that the promises of progress are not blocked by the filibuster.