WASHINGTON – Leading reproductive health advocates, including an abortion provider based in Alabama, spoke about the numerous, imminent threats to abortion access across the country at a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties on Tuesday. The hearing, titled ‘Threats to Reproductive Rights in America,’ took place amid the recent passage of total or near-total abortion bans in several states, including Alabama, Louisiana and Missouri.
Witnesses provided firsthand insight into the ways that restrictions on abortion, threaten people’s health and wellbeing, and the ability of health care professionals to offer crucial medical care. They also discussed how many of the recent abortion restrictions include efforts to criminalize doctors and other health professionals for providing abortion care, creating a hostile environment that endangers both providers and patients.
“I provide abortion care because I believe patients deserve the full spectrum of care.”
“I provide abortion care because I believe patients deserve the full spectrum of care. However, it is extraordinarily difficult for many people in Alabama to access abortion services, and it will only get worse as women’s rights and access to abortion care continue to be threatened,” Dr. Yashica Robinson, an Alabama-based obstetrician-gynecologist, abortion provider at Alabama Women’s Center, board member of Physicians for Reproductive Health, and one of the witnesses who testified at the hearing, said in a statement submitted to the committee. “Abortion care is health care and pregnant people and their doctors need to have access to the full spectrum of options as they manage undesired or complicated pregnancies. We cannot tie health care providers’ hands because of individuals’ objection to a medical procedure for political gain.”
“We cannot tie health care providers’ hands because of individuals’ objection to a medical procedure for political gain.”
Besides Dr. Robinson, other witnesses participating in the hearing included Busy Philipps, an actress noted for sharing her personal abortion story; Dr. Owen Phillips, a Tennessee-based obstetrician-gynecologist; Professor Melissa Murray, a constitutional law scholar at New York University School of Law; Jennifer Dalven, attorney and director of the Reproductive Freedom Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU); and HK Gray, an abortion storyteller with We Testify.