Rep. Schrier’s Statement After Voting for Two Bills to Protect a Woman’s Right to an Abortion

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Kim Schrier, M.D. (WA-08) released the following statement after voting in support of the Women’s Health Protection Act and the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act, two bills that will make sure every woman, no matter where she lives, can access abortion care:

“I’m the only pro-choice woman doctor in all of Congress … a pediatrician. And I have been in the exam room with teens facing unplanned pregnancies, and with mothers who find out the pregnancy they were so excited about is not a viable one. These are deeply personal situations.

Let’s be clear. State laws that criminalize abortion and also travel across state lines for abortion put doctors in an impossible situation and put women at risk.  

As a doctor, I took the Hippocratic oath to ‘first do no harm.’ Think for a moment about the harm of a delayed and more complicated abortion. Or ectopic pregnancies. Or the harm of having a rape victim carry a pregnancy to term. Or the high maternal mortality rate of black mothers in this country.

Frankly, when and whether and under what circumstances to become a mother is the most important decision a woman will ever make. And it must be hers to make. The government has no place in that exam room. 

Today I am voting to make sure every woman, no matter where she lives, can access abortion- to plan their pregnancies, protect their health, and chart the course of their lives.”

Rep. Schrier’s remarks on the Women’s Health Protection Act can be found here. Rep. Schrier’s remarks on the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act can be found here.