A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that every person has the basic right to emergency health care, including abortion care.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to offer a simple resolution, one that reaffirms the basic principle that when you go to the ER, the emergency room, they should be allowed to treat you. When your life is in danger, doctors should be able to do their job. When you need emergency care, including an abortion, no politician should stop you from getting it.

This seems incredibly simple to me. It should not be controversial, especially if everyone who talks about protecting the life of the mother seriously means it. After all, that is what emergency care is for: saving the life of the mother. And yet, when the Biden-Harris administration tried to make clear that these women should get care, many Republicans actually opposed them.

I really want to emphasize, we are talking about women whose water breaks dangerously early or who are experiencing uncontrollable hemorrhaging or sepsis or pre-eclampsia. And still, Republicans actually filed a brief in court saying, essentially, no, we don't think doctors should be required to provide abortion care when a patient's life is at stake.

Their brief rejected that idea--that basic medical reality--of abortion as a stabilizing care. That is really shocking to me, and it should be shocking to everyone.

After a brief like that, I am not going to let any of my Republican colleagues off the hook just for saying they care about the life of the mother--not if they don't lift a finger to actually protect women and to actually make clear that emergency care can include abortion.

We need to send a very clear message on this. The Senate needs to speak with one voice and tell the American people: Yes, we want to make sure your doctor can save your life. Your doctor can save your life.

Before my Republican colleagues get up to object, let me be clear. You will not get by pretending a resolution like this isn't necessary, not when we are hearing now firsthand from doctors racked with guilt for decisions that Republican politicians made for them; not when they are hearing firsthand from women who have bled, suffered, and nearly died because their care was delayed; and, certainly, not when Texas saw maternal deaths now skyrocket because of its strict abortion ban. The data in Texas paints a clear, brutal picture of the reality. These abortion bans are killing women.

Republicans are also not going to get by trying to shift the blame and argue emergency care is already protected because the whole point of this resolution is to say emergency care is protected. If you oppose the Senate actually saying that, don't you see how this could be part of the problem? Don't you see how that could be very dangerous for women?

I can't emphasize this enough. If you don't see and you don't understand--listen. Women are speaking out. Doctors are speaking out. They are terrified; they are heartbroken; and they

are angry. And they are watching right now to see if we can just pass this simple resolution and do the very bare minimum of saying, with one voice, women have a right to get an abortion when their life is at stake--when their life is at stake.

As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 828 on the right to emergency healthcare, including abortion care; that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I disagree with the Senator from Oklahoma, and let me be perfectly clear about what is happening. Here in America, in the 21st century, pregnant women are suffering and dying, not because doctors don't know how to save them, but because doctors don't know if Republicans will let them.

There are skyrocketing maternal death rates in States like Texas, and as I spoke out on the floor last week, there are at least two women dead in Georgia today because of Republican abortion bans. Those kids are now growing up without a mother. That is the harsh reality.

Republicans can't ignore that. Donald Trump can't shout over it. The American people will not ever forget it. And every day we are going to continue to hold those people who are opposed to this accountable for the cruelty of these abortion bans.

The fact is that the resolution that I offered simply says that doctors can provide emergency care for the life of a mother. I don't understand where the disagreement is, and I hope that we can pass this and give doctors and women the confidence that, in the United States of America, when you are pregnant and having a severe emergency medical situation, you will be treated.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object. This resolution itself and the wording that it has in this resolution says it is the sense of the Senate that every person has the basic right to emergency healthcare, including abortion care.

Let me be very, very specific on this. We had a hearing today in the Finance Committee where this same subject was addressed. We had ob-gyns from both perspectives on this, those who perform abortions and those who have a moral objection to it. We had a very good argument to be able to lay some facts out to be able to walk through this, with two sets of attorneys there to be able to walk through the law.

Here is what became very clear during that conversation this morning in that open hearing. There is no State in America in which a woman faces persecution or prosecution for having an abortion. No State criminalizes miscarriage. No State criminalizes removing an ectopic pregnancy. No States prohibits lifesaving care for the mother. No State requires a woman to be actively dying in order for her doctor to care for her.

We heard story after story about doctors being concerned that they may face this because they are hearing political rhetoric--political rhetoric like Vice President Harris in a speech that she said recently--where she said women were being arrested and facing prosecution for experiencing miscarriages. That is not true.

So all of this rhetoric that is being put out there is making doctors afraid, but it was very clear from the conversation in law that none of those things are actually true. Every physician prior to the Dobbs decision--when there were limitations on abortion across the country and post-Dobbs decision, when every single State is making those decisions--allowed physicians in an ER to be able to make lifesaving decisions for the mother and the child. Every doctor has already the ability to be able to make that decision to be able to protect the life of the mother. They have the protections to be able to do that.

So this is a false claim that somehow what happened in the Dobbs decision and what is happening in the States is limiting that. It is actually the political rhetoric that is making people afraid.

What also came out during the hearing this morning was the very real risk of chemical abortions. We have recently had tragic situations where women used the chemical abortion pills that they are being told are as safe as Tylenol, and that it has life-threatening and in some cases, recently, life-taking consequences. Chemical abortion pills are not Tylenol, yet they are being sold as that.

And what we are seeing is more and more cases of the diminishing of ``this is no big deal to be able to end this pregnancy'' when they haven't seen a doctor because the Biden administration is now saying you don't have to see a physician. So the woman doesn't know if she has an ectopic pregnancy or not. If she takes the chemical abortion pill while she has an ectopic pregnancy, she is at risk. But the Biden administration is saying: You don't have to see a doctor. They can just mail it to you. It is just as safe as Tylenol when it is not.

We are also not being tested for their blood type to be able to make sure it doesn't affect future pregnancies during this chemical abortion. And they are not also determining by sonogram how far along the mom is in this process because there are limitations to this where it becomes more and more dangerous.

All those things are restrictions that used to be there, that the Biden administration has taken away to say: No, we want more people to have access to chemical abortions. But it is making it more dangerous for women. And we have seen this recently.

So we want to engage in a conversation about how can we actually put some of those basic humane doctor-requested restrictions in there to make sure we are protecting the lives of all those women. That is a better conversation for us to be able to have. To say: What is it the FDA actually said was appropriate in the past, and what can we do to be able to protect the lives of women?

So, yes, I object to this resolution based on the wording and what we are doing. But, yes, we should be able to continue to have this conversation because there is a real concern that more and more doctors are afraid to do basic healthcare in an ER because more and more people are laying rhetoric out there that they are going to be arrested, and that is not true.

There has not been a single physician in the country that has been arrested based on actually performing lifesaving care for mom in any ER room in the country.

With that, I object.