The Senate failed us yesterday

Yesterday, the Senate voted against the Women's Health Protection Act. The WHPA would protect abortion rights nationwide, no matter what the Supreme Court does.

Enshrined in the Roe v. Wade decision is not just the right to an abortion, but elemental concepts of privacy and bodily autonomy. An overturn of Roe v. Wade, as the leaked Supreme Court draft decision suggests is coming, would represent a terrible attack on our constitutional freedoms and the trampling of legal precedent, long-standing norms, and the will of the vast majority of Americans.

In the House, we passed the Women's Health Protection Act months ago. The Senate had a chance to protect those freedoms yesterday, but not a single Republican stood up for liberty and freedom. Senators Murray and Cantwell were on our side but even their passionate support could not overcome the Republicans' filibuster. My colleagues in the House and I will encourage Senate Democrats to keep making the case with the few Republicans who support Roe v. Wade that a temporary suspension of the filibuster to protect reproductive freedom is practical, precedented, and necessary.

But there is something looming that is even worse than minority Republicans in the Senate obstructing the passage of national abortion rights: majority Republicans passing a nationwide abortion ban. This is exactly what Mitch McConnell has promised is on the table if Republicans take over Congress this November. Here is what we know: Time and again, we have seen Mitch McConnell upend long-standing norms in pursuit of narrow interests over those of the American people.

That is why this election is an all-hands-on-deck campaign. We have to expand our majorities in the House and Senate and protect abortion rights.

Rick