Peach Tree Times

Washington, D.C.  – Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) joined his colleague U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and a group of Democratic senators in re-introducing the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act. As states across the country continue to attack women’s freedoms, this legislation would block anti-choice states from limiting travel for abortion services and empower the Attorney General and impacted individuals to bring civil action against those who restrict a woman’s right to cross state lines to receive legal reproductive care.

“I’ve long said that a doctor’s office is too small and cramped of space for a woman, her doctor, and the United States government,” said Senator Reverend Warnock. “Not only are some women being told what choices they can and cannot make, now there are draconian efforts to keep those women from leaving the state to get the health care they need. The Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act is more necessary than ever, and I plan to keep fighting to get this passed.”

This April, Idaho became the first state to criminalize assisting with out-of-state travel for some seeking abortions. And anti-choice politicians in states like Tennessee, Texas, and Missouri are trying to punish both women for leaving their state for reproductive care and the doctors and employers who help them. The Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act underscores the Constitutional protections for interstate travel and provides redress for women whose rights are violated. The legislation would also protect health care providers in pro-choice states like Nevada from prosecution and lawsuits for serving individuals traveling from other states. In Georgia, women cannot receive an abortion before many women know they’re pregnant. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, only 9 percent of abortions in Georgia over the last decade would be legal under the new six-week ban.

In addition to Senators Warnock, Cortez Masto, Whitehouse, Murray, and Gillibrand, the legislation is also cosponsored by Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), John Fetterman (D-Penn.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

This legislation is endorsed by NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, National Women’s Law Center, Center for Reproductive Rights, Physicians for Reproductive Health, National Partnership for Women & Families, Catholics for Choice, Power to Decide, National Council of Jewish Women, and the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association.

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Original source can be found here.