Today’s Supreme Court order ensures that women in Idaho can access the emergency medical care they need while this case returns to the lower courts. No woman should be denied care, made to wait until she’s near death, or forced to flee her home state just to receive the health care she needs. This should never happen in America. Yet, this is exactly what is happening in states across the country since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
State abortion bans are also forcing doctors to leave Idaho and other states. In January, I heard heartbreaking testimony from Dr. Kylie Cooper, a physician who cared for patients with high-risk pregnancies in Idaho. After practicing medicine under Idaho’s extreme abortion ban—which went into effect after Roe v. Wade was overturned—Dr. Cooper made the difficult decision to uproot her family, leave the community she loved, and move to a different state. Because of the state ban, and for the first time in her career, she was unable to offer the care her patients with certain pregnancy complications desperately needed.
Doctors should be able to practice medicine. Patients should be able to get the care they need. Instead, Dr. Cooper’s story is the reality for doctors and the women they care for since Roe v. Wade was overturned. And make no mistake: this is all part of Republican elected officials’ extreme and dangerous agenda to ban abortion nationwide, and put women’s health and lives at risk.
The stakes could not be higher and the contrast could not be clearer. My Administration is committed to defending reproductive freedom and maintains our long-standing position that women have the right to access the emergency medical care they need. Vice President Harris and I will continue to fight for a woman’s right to make deeply personal health care decisions. And we will continue to fight to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law, for all women in every state across the country.
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