State laws restricting abortion are “blatant and cruel” efforts to overturn the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a Senate speech on May 21.
Senator Murray said “In the last few weeks, we have seen some of the most blatant and cruel efforts to deny women access to safe, legal abortion,” Sen. Murray said, claiming that such laws “sentence healthcare providers to prison for providing safe, medically-sound care to their patients, which is their responsibility.”
The senator also suggested President Donald Trump and newly-appointed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh are complicit in an effort to overturn Roe v. Wade:
“They want to allow Brett Kavanaugh to do what President Trump and Republicans chose him to do—roll back the decision in Roe v. Wade that established a woman’s constitutionally-protected right to make her own decisions about her own body and her own healthcare.”
Murray accused pro-life politicians of wanting to take America back to the era of the television program, “Mad Men,” set in the 1960’s:
“The truth is that there are certain extreme politicians throughout the country that want to take us backward to the 'Mad Men' era or further than that. The vast majority of women and men nationwide, including those from all different backgrounds agree, abortion should be safe and it should be legal, just as our constitution says.”
While a recent NPR poll by NPR finds that the majority of Americans want abortion to remain legal, it also reveals that very few Americans support abortion without any restrictions. Only 21% of respondents supported abortion being legal without any restrictions, while 39% of respondents wanted to either completely overturn Roe v. Wade or add more restrictions to abortion. Just 16% said they were satisfied with the current laws in place and 14% wanted to reduce restrictions.
Additionally, 61% of respondents said that they were in favor of restricting abortion to the first trimester of a pregnancy, or allowing abortion only in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.
Murray has been a vocal supporter of abortion throughout her career in the Senate, even going so far as to filibuster the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, a bill that would federally mandate that infants who survive abortion attempts be given medical care.