Senate Democrats failed in an effort to pass unanimously legislation meant to protect interstate travel for women seeking an abortion where it is legal, a means of combating efforts by anti-abortion advocates.
Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) requested a unanimous vote, requiring all senators in the chamber to approve the legislation. Republican James Lankford of Oklahoma objected.
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The Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act of 2022 text clarifies that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause ensures that women seeking abortions can “travel freely and voluntarily among the several states.” The bill also aims to protect providers who perform the procedure for women who travel across state lines.
The bill is popular among many Democrats. Since it was introduced on Tuesday, it has garnered support from 30 other Democrats. It would protect the right to travel for an abortion, as the future of regulation across state lines remains murky. An effort to crack down on interstate abortion travel has already been attempted in the Missouri Legislature, and the idea has gained momentum in some state legislatures.
“Republicans have ripped away every woman’s right to decide whether or not to keep a pregnancy, and now some Republican lawmakers want to hold women captive in their own states by punishing them for exercising their constitutional right to travel within our country to get the care they need,” Murray said. “Restricting women’s right to travel across state lines is truly radical — and un-American.”
On Thursday, senators in support of the bill cited efforts on the part of anti-abortion groups, such as the Thomas More Society, to draft legislation that would target travel beyond state lines for an abortion, relying on the civil enforcement mechanism employed by Texas’s ban that gives private citizens the power to sue abortion providers.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that some states are going to continue to move forward with these kinds of legislation,” said Cortez Masto. “What legislators are doing across the country to restrict women from traveling is just blatantly unconstitutional. They constrain the fundamental constitutional right to travel. They are anti-woman, anti-business, and they’re anti-provider.”
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The bill sought to clear up the fallout of the Supreme Court’s decision last month to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that guaranteed the right to an abortion. The ruling left open room for questions about the reach of state laws that give citizens the right to sue anyone believed to have performed or aided in the procurement of an abortion.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh ruled out interstate travel bans in his concurring opinion in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, saying that it is a “constitutional right” to cross state lines.
