Sanders, Murray holding hearing on ‘Republican abortion bans’

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) announced a hearing to examine the past two years since the Supreme Court Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade and the impact of the subsequent “Republican abortion bans.”

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which Sanders chairs, will hold the hearing June 4, titled “The Assault on Women’s Freedoms: How Abortion Bans Have Created a Health Care Nightmare Across America.”

Witnesses for the hearing have not yet been announced.

“In the two years since Roe was overturned, Republican abortion bans have created a full-blown health care crisis — forcing providers to close their doors and shut down their practices, putting women’s lives in danger, decimating access to maternal health care, and forcing women to remain pregnant, no matter their circumstances,” the two senators said in a statement.

Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, 14 states have enacted total abortion bans and seven have passed bans within the first 18 weeks of pregnancy.

The Senate Judiciary Committee previously held a hearing titled “The Continued Assault on Reproductive Freedoms in a Post-Dobbs America” in March, with Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Rep. Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.) among the panelists who testified.

“The anti-abortion movement has shown its cruelty and utter disregard for women’s lives again and again, and it is essential that we use every opportunity to continue to make clear exactly how extreme right-wing abortion bans and restrictions on reproductive health care have endangered women, hurt families, and rolled back rights,” Murray and Sanders added.

The office of HELP committee ranking member Bill Cassidy (R-La.) did not immediately respond when reached for comment about the hearing.