Dem Rep. Pressley: ‘Cruel’ Ruling Overturning Roe a ‘Public Health Crisis’

Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) said Friday on MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports” that the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade had created a “public health crisis.”

Pressley said, “Abortion carries health care, and for the second time, the House of Representatives, the people’s House, has yet again passed necessary legislation, which I’m proud to co-lead and as the chair of the Abortion Rights and Access Task Force that we are enshrining the right for abortion care for everyone who calls America home. So the people’s House, we have done our job for the second time. And now we are calling on the Senate to do theirs. Daily folks are facing insurmountable barriers to abortion care. The fallout from the Supreme Court’s cruel ruling is devastating.”

She continued, “The facts remain if you have an ectopic pregnancy and your life is being threatened, your only option is abortion care. If you have a miscarriage and you have not expelled everything in order for you to be safe, the only option is abortion. If you have been diagnosed with cancer and are pregnant, the only way you can pursue treatment to save your life is abortion. This is also about bodily autonomy and freedom and one’s right to decide when or if to start a family. Abortion care is health care. In the midst of a black maternal morbidity crisis, and, again, this is fact, not fiction, where black women are three times more likely to die in birth to be dealing with forced birth, the prospect of forced birth, it is predicted the black mortality crisis will increase by 33% and the maternal mortality crisis writ large by 21%.”

Pressley added, “The people’s House, for the second time, has done our job in the face of this far-right Supreme Court, which has overturned the will of the people, sought to roll back the hand of time and to roll over our bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom. Failure is not an option. This is a matter of life and death, and the Senate must pass The Women’s Health Protection Act and enshrine abortion for everyone who calls this country home.”

She concluded, “This is a public health crisis, and I do believe this home requires that so that we can have a whole of government approach.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN