It’s been three years since the U.S. Supreme Court toppled Roe v. Wade in a ruling that sent the fight over abortion rights back to the states, resulting in laws that restricted or banned access to the procedure for millions of people nationwide.
And just in time for Tuesday’s anniversary of the high court’s ruling in a case formally known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Republicans on Capitol Hill are launching another assault that would result in a de facto nationwide ban on abortion even in states where the procedure remains safe and legal.
The four women members of the Bay State’s Capitol Hill delegation — U.S. Reps. Lori Trahan, D-3rd District. Katherine Clark, D-5th District, and Ayanna Pressley, D-7th District, along with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., gathered at Planned Parenthood’s offices on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston on Monday to deliver that message.
“ Dobbs showed us [that] the unthinkable can happen,“ Dominique Lee, the president of the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts, who joined the lawmakers Monday, said during that news conference.
“And now it is our turn to show them what we are capable of because our vision is stronger than their hate, and our future is still ours to shape,” Lee, who helms the state branch of Planned Parenthood’s political wing, added.
Here’s how that would happen:
Language tucked into President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” would ban insurance plans offered under the Affordable Care Act from covering abortion care in certain states, according to an analysis by the National Women’s Law Center.
It also would effectively defund Planned Parenthood by blocking Medicaid reimbursements to the reproductive health organization, which also offers screenings for cancer and sexually transmitted infections and access to contraception among its services, Lee said Monday.
Of the 30,000 patients that Planned Parenthood serves statewide in Massachusetts, about 40% are on Medicaid. If Trump signs it in its current form, the bill would “wipe out” nearly half of Planned Parenthood’s revenue, Lee said.
“It would block thousands from care,” Lee said. “And still, they push forward, because the cruelty isn’t just part of the policy, it is the policy.”
The bill passed the Republican-controlled U.S. House by a single vote in May. It’s now before the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, which is widely expected to amend the bill and return it to the House before it can go to Trump.
Lawmakers are moving the bill across Capitol Hill under a process known as “reconciliation,” which requires a simple majority vote.
All told, the bill would reduce federal Medicaid spending by $793 billion over 10 years.
In Massachusetts, the bill would cost the state’s health care system $1.75 billion and strip coverage for about 250,000 people, according to the Healey administration.
The results would be disastrous for Planned Parenthood and public health broadly, Clark and her colleagues warned.
“ It would defund cancer screenings and prenatal care, postpartum services, fertility treatment, and preventative care. Ninety-six percent of Planned Parenthood’s clinical work has nothing to do with abortion,” Clark, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, said.
“That’s right. And Republicans know that there have been no federal dollars in decades going to provide abortion services. But that hasn’t stopped them from doing everything they need to do to take away healthcare from millions of women,” Clark continued.
Warren painted a similarly dire picture.
“Thirteen states now have an all-out ban on abortion,” the Cambridge lawmaker said. “Women are being forced to carry doomed pregnancies to term, [and] more are forced to miscarry in parking lots, so they will be closer to death.”
“ … Republicans in Congress are now trying to pass a bill that would rip healthcare coverage away from 16 million people so that they can give trillions of dollars in tax giveaways to billionaires and billionaire corporations right here in New England,” Warren continued.
Pressley reflected on her own experience with Planned Parenthood, where she had been diagnosed and treated for health issues that included painful uterine fibroids.
“ I was met with compassion, and community, and embrace, and that meant everything,” the Boston lawmaker said, stressing the impact that Medicaid cuts will have on Black maternal mortality.
“Every time we’re in Washington and folks across the aisle mostly, but not only, white men start to attack the critical work of Planned Parenthood, I know the moment they open their mouth that they’ve never sat across from a dedicated Planned Parenthood provider or patient,” she said. “Because if they had, they would understand the vital importance of this work.”
Democrats on Capitol Hill, including U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., have tried to peel off Republican support for the bill by driving home the bill’s impact on Red States, which have large Medicaid populations.
In the Senate, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., can afford to lose just three GOP votes to win passage. There, Warren said, she sees possibilities.
“ We’re going to talk about this,” Warren said. We’re going to get them face to face and make sure they understand … that if they vote to advance this bill the way it is written now, then they are going to cost the lives of the people that they have been elected to represent,” she said.
Clark said lawmakers have already talked to Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey about helping to backfill any Medicaid money the state loses. But both Healey and the state Senate’s top budget writer each have said the state won’t be able to do much about replacing any lost cash.
“ States aren’t gonna have a lot of options if you are asked to absorb the Medicaid cuts,“ Clark said,
”The food program cuts public school cuts, veterans benefits cuts — states do not have that ability and flexibility,” she said, referring to other social services cuts in the bill. “They need a partner in the federal government.”
