Congress roiled by U.S. Supreme Court decision revoking abortion rights
Republicans in Congress were jubilant at the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling overturning decades of precedent to revoke a constitutional right to an abortion, while Democrats were equally despondent about what they called an extremist decision that revoked a long-held right and represented an attack on women’s autonomy.
The party-line reaction – including among Georgia’s congressional delegation – hints at how lawmakers will approach abortion as the issue moves away from the court and more directly to the elected branches of government.
Democrats urged that voters remember the ruling when they go to the polls in the November mid-term elections and said they will redouble their attempts to pass legislation protecting the right to an abortion that’s stalled in the evenly divided U.S. Senate.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who backs abortion rights, said she voted to confirm Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, and their agreement with the majority 6-3 decision was “inconsistent” with what they said during their hearings and in conversations with her. The court “abandoned a fifty-year precedent at a time that the country is desperate for stability,” Collins said in a statement.
The leaders of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, Democrats Diana DeGette of Colorado and Barbara Lee of California, said in a statement the ruling would force women in half the states to “face a terrifying legal landscape when trying to access the abortion care they need.”
“We cannot overstate the devastating impact that this horrific decision will have on millions of people across this country,” they said. “By disregarding fifty years of legal precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court has effectively stripped away from 36 million women the freedom to control their own bodies and have handed that power, instead, to the politicians in their states.”
The decision would “undoubtedly put the health and economic futures of millions of women at risk,” they said. They pledged to renew efforts to enshrine legal protections to abortion in legislation.
President Joe Biden said the ruling broke new ground for the court in revoking an existing right and would have immediate impact in states with more restrictive laws than Roe would have permitted.
“The court has done what it has never done before: Expressly take away a constitutional right that is so fundamental to so many Americans.”
Celebrating the ruling, Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell compared it to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that invalidated legal school segregation. Like the Friday ruling, the Brown decision also overturned a previous Supreme Court case.
“The Court has corrected a terrible legal and moral error, like when Brown v. Board overruled Plessy v. Ferguson,” McConnell said in a statement.
Georgia congressional delegation’s reaction falls along party lines, too
Georgia Democratic Congresswoman Lucy McBath argued the reverse: “Today, SCOTUS overturned a half century of precedent, and Dobbs will now join Plessy as one of the most regressive decisions in our nation’s history,” she said in a statement.
Several Republican members of Congress, including Georgia Congressman Jody Hice, tweeted simply, “Life wins.”
“Today we celebrate a great, great victory in the fight for Life,” the Greensboro Republican also tweeted Friday. “However, we must continue to pray for our country and the battles about to begin in state legislatures across the nation.”
Congressman Barry Loudermilk, a Woodstock Republican, argued the ruling shifts the decision-making to where it belongs: on the state level.
“For the pro-life community, our work is only beginning. The states will now need to enact laws to affirm the right to life for the pre-born at the state level,” he said.
Georgia Congressman Sanford Bishop, an Albany Democrat, lamented the decision’s empowerment of these state lawmakers to determine the limits of abortion access.
“These personal healthcare choices should ultimately rest with a woman, her God and her doctor — not with politicians in 50 different state legislatures that may likely encourage Americans to spy on their neighbors’ for a bounty; stalk women, their friends and supporters; criminalize doctors and otherwise limit access to healthcare,” Bishop said.
“While I believe abortion should be rare, it should be legal, safe, and an available choice in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life or health of a woman,” he added.
Congressman Hank Johnson, a Lithonia Democrat, called the ruling “most damnable Supreme Court decision in my lifetime.”
“For the first time in our nation’s history, the Supreme Court has snatched away a fundamental civil right,” Johnson said in a statement. “For half a century, the reproductive right has been a hallmark of gender equality in our nation. Women have now had that right ripped away by a callous and extreme, draconian Supreme Court. What civil right is next? Will it be the right to use contraceptives? Will it be marriage equality? Or will it be the civil and voting rights of Black and Brown people? Just how far backwards does this ultra-reactionary Court plan to take us?”
Women in Congress
The leaders of the Democratic Women’s Caucus in the House, including Co-Chairs Lois Frankel of Florida, Brenda Lawrence of Michigan, Jackie Speier of California and Whip Nikema Williams of Georgia, said the ruling would “go down in history as one of (the court’s) worst, most unjust decisions.”
“Women are not chattel, and the government should not have the right to mandate pregnancies,” they said in a statement. “Every situation and pregnancy is different, and all people deserve the freedom to control their bodies and make personal decisions about their lives and futures. We will never give up the fight for access to full health care.”
In her own tweet, Williams noted her decade-long employment with Planned Parenthood before coming to Congress that gave her a closer look at the consequences of restricting abortion access.
“I’ve seen the pain and devastation that comes when states eliminate equal access to legal, safe abortions,” she said. “The Supreme Court’s radical majority hasn’t just opened the door to that, it’s welcoming it with open arms.”
Schumer blames Senate GOP
Several Democrats blamed Senate Republicans for the Supreme Court’s conservative makeup and called for action in the chamber to protect abortion rights on the federal level.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement the ruling made Friday “one of the darkest days our country has ever seen” and called Senate Republicans “complicit in today’s decision and all of its consequences for women and families.”
Schumer urged voters to remember the court’s decision in November.
“Today’s decision makes crystal clear the contrast as we approach the November elections,” the New York Democrat said in a statement.
“Elect more MAGA Republicans if you want nationwide abortion bans, the jailing of women and doctors and no exemptions for rape or incest. Or, elect more pro-choice Democrats to save Roe and protect a woman’s right to make their own decisions about their body, not politicians.”’
Biden also called for Congress to act and for voters to choose candidates in November who support abortion rights.
Ohio’s Tim Ryan, a Democratic House member running for the Senate, sought campaign contributions immediately after the ruling was released.
“I proudly voted for the Women’s Health Protection Act in the House, only to watch it die in the Senate,” he wrote on Twitter. “It’s clear the Senate is not working and women will pay the price unless we act. Make a donation to help us defeat my anti-choice opponent, JD Vance.”
Senate Judiciary ranking Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa celebrated the ruling, which he said protected “the rights of the unborn.” The ruling was well-reasoned in its overturning of judicial precedent — an action the high court has taken before, he noted.
“For many Americans, including myself, this decision is about far more than correcting a flawed legal analysis in Roe,” he said in a written statement. “It means that the rights of the unborn are no longer in jeopardy by our federal government. Our nation was founded on the fundamental principle we are endowed by our creator with the unalienable right to life — a right that must be protected.
“This ruling does not ban the practice of abortion but instead empowers the people, through their accountable elected representatives to make commonsense policy decisions. It takes policymaking out of the hands of unelected judges.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence, a longtime champion of the religious right, called for state abortion bans in every state.
“Having been given this second chance for Life, we must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in the land,” he posted on Twitter.
Manchin, Collins blast Trump justices
But the court’s move Friday to directly contradict established precedent — especially by justices who’d explicitly identified Roe as settled during their confirmation hearings — opened it to criticism.
Even the most conservative member of Schumer’s caucus, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin III, said Friday he was “deeply disappointed” in the ruling.
Manchin, who considers himself pro-life and voted for two of former President Donald Trump’s nominees to the court, criticized those justices Friday for breaking with what they’d said in confirmation hearings.
“I trusted Justice (Neil) Gorsuch and Justice (Brett) Kavanaugh when they testified under oath that they also believed Roe v. Wade was settled legal precedent and I am alarmed they chose to reject the stability the ruling has provided for two generations of Americans,” Manchin said in a written statement.
Collins expressed displeasure with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh in a statement that slammed the decision for casting abortion policy into upheaval.
“This ill-considered action will further divide the country at a moment when, more than ever in modern times, we need the Court to show both consistency and restraint. Throwing out a precedent overnight that the country has relied upon for half a century is not conservative. It is a sudden and radical jolt to the country that will lead to political chaos, anger, and a further loss of confidence in our government.
“This decision is inconsistent with what Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their testimony and their meetings with me, where they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents that the country has relied upon.”
Manchin and fellow “pro-life Democrat” Sen. Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania blasted the decision for overturning established law.
“Today’s decision upends almost a half century of legal precedent and rips away a constitutional right that generations of women have known their entire lives,” Casey, whose father, as the commonwealth’s governor, challenged Roe in another of the cases the court overturned Friday, tweeted.
“This dangerous ruling won’t end abortions in this country, but it will put women’s lives at risk,” he added.
Senate fight to come?
With abortion rights no longer guaranteed by the judicial branch, many Democrats on Friday appealed for passage of legislation to protect abortion rights, including a House-passed measure that has stalled under the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.
“The Senate must pass the Women’s Health Protection Act,” U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said in a statement. “Republican obstruction and abuse of the filibuster is not an acceptable excuse for inaction when the fundamental rights of millions hang in the balance.”
Collins’ statement promoted her own bill with Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski that she said would codify the protections in Roe. She was also working with Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine on a bipartisan bill, she said.
Abortion rights should be consistent nationally, Collins said, though states should be allowed to make minor policy adjustments.
“Our goal with this legislation is to do what the Court should have done — provide the consistency in our abortion laws that Americans have relied upon for 50 years,” she said.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, promised the panel would hold a hearing next month to explore the “grim reality” of the decision’s consequences.
“I will keep fighting to enshrine into law a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices,” Durbin said. “We cannot let our children inherit a nation that is less free and more dangerous than the one their parents grew up in.”
Durbin spoke with Vice President Kamala Harris about the ruling as the two traveled on Air Force Two Friday morning, according to a pool report.
Ariana Figueroa and Georgia Recorder Deputy Editor Jill Nolin contributed to this report.