ICYMI: Shaheen Joins Colleagues at Forum on Dobbs Anniversary Highlighting Disastrous Impacts of Abortion Bans and Republican Efforts to Restrict Reproductive Health Care

(Washington, DC) – Ahead of the four-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s disastrous Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) joined a spotlight forum led by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) to discuss how the Trump Administration and Republicans are sowing chaos for women and health care providers nationwide through ongoing attacks on reproductive rights and women's health care, alongside escalating efforts to enact a nationwide abortion ban. The spotlight forum, entitled “Post Dobbs Chaos: Republicans’ War on Reproductive Health Care,” included panelists who have suffered the consequences of the Dobbs decision and subsequent Republican abortion bans firsthand. Click HERE to watch the full forum. Key Quotes from Senator Shaheen: “As I was sitting here, I was looking at the audience and at the fact that most of us here are women [...] But I think one of the things that often gets missed because it's women who are directly affected is that this is not a women's issue. This is a family issue.” “In New Hampshire [...] it's been really difficult for our family planning providers to continue to provide the reproductive care that granite staters rely on. We have barriers at the state level. Congressional Republicans used H.R. 1 to decimate the operating budgets of Planned Parenthood health centers. They've prevented them from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for the last year. Fortunately, despite these kinds of obstacles, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England has not only survived, but it's continued to expand access. I worry, however, that our clinics in New Hampshire will ultimately not be able to withstand continued attacks by the Republican legislature.” “In New Hampshire, [...] we've got about between twelve and 15,000 women who depend on Planned Parenthood centers for their health care, the majority of their health care, and it's creating real challenges in rural areas [...] the cutbacks that are there are designed to address access to reproductive care, but in fact, they're having a much broader impact for women and families.” Senator Shaheen is an unrelenting advocate for women’s reproductive rights. Shaheen is a long time cosponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act which would guarantee a woman’s right to access an abortion free from medically unnecessary restrictions that interfere with a patient’s individual choice or the provider-patient relationship. Shaheen has also joined her Senate colleagues in opposing Senate Republicans’ effort to restrict access to reproductive health care, including their push last year to pass legislation that would have significantly interfered with the doctor-patient relationship and posed unnecessary and harmful obstacles to a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her reproductive health. For years, Shaheen has fought to expand coverage of women’s preventative care, including through her legislation to reduce the cost of contraception for servicewomen and dependents in military families. ###