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Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, Vice Chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus (DWC) and member of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, voted to defend women’s constitutional right to reproductive health care with H.R. 3755, the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021 (WHPA). 

The Women’s Health Protection Act was introduced by Congresswoman Escobar, alongside her colleagues Congresswomen Judy Chu (CA-27), Lois Frankel (FL-21), and Ayanna Pressley (MA-07).

Amid a dangerous assault on women’s basic health freedoms – from Texas and state houses across the country to the U.S. Supreme Court – this landmark legislation enshrines into law the vital protections of Roe v. Wade and secures the right to reproductive care for all women across America.

“This year is on track to be the worst legislative year for women’s reproductive rights ever,” said Congresswoman Escobar. “In the face of the draconian Texas abortion ban, which erodes abortion access, Congress has the obligation to act with urgency to safeguard women’s reproductive freedom from the politicians who want to control it. I am proud to have co-led this effort to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade into law and call on the Senate to bring the Women’s Health Protection Act to the floor immediately.” 

On May 19^th, Texas enacted SB 8, which is now the most extreme abortion law in effect in the United States. This catastrophic legislation outlaws nearly all abortions after six weeks, with no exceptions for rape and incest, while also creating a chilling bounty system that deputizes private citizens to sue health care providers or anyone else they believe has helped a woman get an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

Shamefully, the U.S. Supreme Court voted to permit this law to go into effect, despite its flagrant violation of the Constitution, by effectively denying Texas women the ability to exercise their constitutional rights as guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court could take further action to gut Roe v. Wade’s essential protections when it considers Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on December 1^st, 2021.

The Women’s Health Protections Act defends the constitutional right to abortion care as found in Roe v. Wade and reaffirmed in many subsequent decisions for nearly half a century.  

It establishes the federal statutory right for health care providers to offer abortion care and the federal right for patients to receive that care, free from state restrictions. Enshrining these essential rights is also an issue of racial and economic justice, as restrictions on reproductive care disproportionately harms women of color and women from low-income communities and perpetuate long-standing inequities.

The full text of the Women’s Health Protection Act is available here.