Prairie State Wire

[CARBONDALE, IL] – Nearly one year after the disastrous Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision, U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) visited Southern Illinois’s CHOICES Center for Reproductive Health to learn more about the clinic’s work. CHOICES, an abortion service provider, is one of the closest clinics for Americans in states across the South where abortion has been banned after last year’s Supreme Court ruling. With Illinois as a leader in protecting the rights for comprehensive reproductive care, Duckworth and the group discussed the now intensified need to protect the privacy, emotional wellbeing and physical safety of the clinic’s influx of patients, and how the Senator will continue to support the clinic’s work from the federal level. Photos from the meeting are available here.

“One year after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, I remain just as outraged and horrified at the work of Republicans’ continuing and escalating efforts to rip away Americans’ basic access to healthcare services and the freedom to make decisions for themselves, their families and their futures,” said Duckworth. “I’m so proud that Illinois is a leader in protecting reproductive rights and is a beacon of hope and access for millions. The CHOICES Center for Reproductive Health, where I am today in Southern Illinois, is the closest point of access to reproductive care for millions of Americans across Kentucky and Missouri and as far as Alabama and Texas. I’m dedicated to doing everything I can at the federal level to protect and expand affordable access to healthcare and enshrine every American’s right to choose—no matter their zip code.”

Duckworth has made protecting and expanding access to essential reproductive healthcare a top priority. Recently, Duckworth joined more than 250 members of Congress in submitting an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, in support of the Biden Administration’s appeal of a federal district court ruling that suspends the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) more than 20-year-old approval of mifepristone as well as the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit—which does not revoke FDA approval of mifepristone in its entirety but does significantly restrict access to the drug nationwide and ultimately overrides FDA’s scientific judgment. Duckworth also helped introduce the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2023, federal legislation to guarantee access to abortion everywhere across the country and restore the right to comprehensive reproductive healthcare for millions of Americans. 

Duckworth hosted Dr. Erin King of Illinois’s Hope Clinic as her 2023 State of the Union guest, as part of the Senator’s continuing efforts to defend Americans’ right to full, comprehensive reproductive healthcare—no matter their zip code, income, ability status or skin color. In 2021, she introduced the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH) Act, as well as previously supported the Women’s Health Protection Act, which she vocally criticized Republicans for blocking. After she urged Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to proactively protect servicemembers’ abortion rights, the Department of Defense announced several new protections and services to ensure our female troops can access the healthcare they need. Duckworth also pushed back against Republican attacks against the Biden Administration’s efforts to protect female Veterans’ access to care. 

Original source can be found here.