Chairman Aguilar: None of Trump’s executive orders will do anything meaningful to make life more affordable to working families
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar and Vice Chair Ted Lieu held a press conference with Representatives Janelle Bynum and Kelly Morrison, MD, to highlight the 52nd Anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision and the failure of House Republicans to prioritize the needs of everyday Americans.
CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: Thank you so much for joining us. I'm grateful to be joined today by Representative Janelle Bynum and Representative, Dr. Kelly Morrison.
This week marks 52 years since Roe v. Wade enshrined women's reproductive freedom into law, and these new members understand what Roe meant for women and how the Dobbs decision is putting women at risk every day across this country. The subject of reproductive freedom was absent from Monday's inaugural address, as well as the bizarre, rambling speech that followed.
Also absent from Donald Trump's speech was any mention of specific policies that he will do to bring down the cost of groceries, housing, childcare and medicine. None of the executive orders will do anything meaningful to make life more affordable to working families. What we got was a room full of the richest people on earth plotting the prospect of more tax cuts for them and more corporate consolidation that would lead to fewer choices and higher prices for consumers. My local Costco was out of eggs this weekend. We ended up paying $14 for 18 eggs. That is a much bigger problem for working people than the name of the Gulf of Mexico.
House Democrats are ready to work with anyone to bring down the cost of living but so far, Republicans have failed to show us that they're interested in doing anything that helps working families. Their focus has been on the billionaire class that helped them win elections. Vice Chair Ted Lieu.
VICE CHAIR LIEU: Thank you, Chairman Aguilar. I want to thank Representatives Brad Sherman and Judy Chu this weekend for leading a tour of the devastating fires in Southern California, both the Palisades Fire as well as the Eaton Fire. I had the opportunity to go on both of those and the devastation is significant. This is why we need to get disaster relief to the disaster victims in California and not condition aid. We have never done that before in the United States of America. We should not be leveraging the pain and suffering of disaster victims to try to jam through political priorities. And I just want to note that last month, Congress passed the American Relief Act. It was to help disaster victims in Florida, in Oklahoma and South Carolina. Did Democrats say, ‘Hey, we want to condition aid because they're red states.?’ No, we did not, because at the end of day, we're all Americans. We were all God's children, and it is simply immoral, not Christian and unAmerican to force disaster victims to not get aid because of particular policy priorities that Republicans may have.
I also want to just correct the record on some things the Speaker has said because they're simply incorrect. He said on national TV that there was a lack of water in Southern California to fight the fires, and the reservoir was offline because of a fish known as a Delta smelt. That was just incorrect. The reservoir was offline because it was undergoing repairs. Now, there's an investigation as to why is that when there was a potential fire that could be coming, but nothing to do with fish. It simply was offline for repairs. He also said that we conditioned aid in the past. He mentioned Hurricane Katrina. We did not do that. We did not say, ‘Hey, before we give money to Louisiana disaster victims, we want Louisiana to do more on climate change.’ Democrats did not ask for that. No one asked for that, and that should not happen now. And so, I just want Congress to pass relief as soon as possible and not condition aid. And now, it is my honor to introduce an amazing Representative Janelle Bynum. She was a fantastic state legislator in Oregon. She's now a fantastic Member of Congress.
REP. BYNUM: 52 years ago, with Roe v. Wade, our country established the fundamental freedom for women to make their own health care decisions, and as a result, more women had access to critical care and better health outcomes. Since then, we've seen anti-choice extremists roll that right back, and they've taken steps to ban access to reproductive care entirely. And it is my belief that this has had devastating impacts on women across the country, disproportionately affecting women of color, women with low incomes and women in rural communities. Now this week, House Republicans are having us vote on a bill that continues to undermine women's access to health care. For me, that's unacceptable, and it's frankly not what I was sent here to work on. So, I'll be voting no.
The evidence is clear: in states with less access to care, maternal mortality is higher, infants deaths are higher and racial inequities are greater. These restrictions also make it harder for expecting mothers to receive the care they need in pregnancies and complications. So, that is why I will fight for all women to have access to reproductive care, and to be able to make those decisions for themselves. I believe that women shouldn't have to pay thousands of dollars to travel across state lines, or risk prosecution to access basic health care.
For me, it's nonsense that my daughters, I have two of them, that they'll have less rights than I did at their age. It's nonsense that they've had to decide where to live and go to school based on where they'll have rights, and it's nonsense that my daughters are less safe because of government interference in their health care. It's time that House Republicans put aside this foolishness and start focusing on real issues like eliminating maternal mortality and increasing rural access to health care; like lowering costs and creating good jobs; and like working across the aisle to deliver real results for real people. Thank you, and now I'll hand it over to Kelly Morrison of Minnesota.
REP. MORRISON: Thank you, Representative Bynum. Good morning, everyone. I'm Congresswoman Kelly Morrison. I represent Minnesota's Third District, and for more than 20 years, I've had the honor and privilege of caring for patients as an OB/GYN. And now, I'm very proud and humbled to be the first and only pro-choice OB/GYN in Congress. Two and a half years ago, the Supreme Court overturned 50 years of precedent and issued the Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade, and for the first time in our country's history, taking away a right.
Today, as we recognize what would have been the 52nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we acknowledge the harsh reality that our country is facing. A maternal health crisis was unfolding across the United States before Roe was overturned, but that decision has only served to accelerate that crisis. Today, women have less rights to health care than their mothers and grandmothers did. 44% of women and more than half of Black women of reproductive age live under abortion bans. Over a third of counties in the United States are maternity care deserts and we're facing a shortage of OB/GYNs that is only expected to get worse. These are serious and dangerous threats to women, children and families.
Voters across the country have shown that they want to preserve a woman's right to access to health care that she needs. Voters in red, purple and blue states from Missouri and Montana to Arizona and Colorado, to New York and Maryland, voted for reproductive freedom in this past election on state ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments. And I want every woman to know: we see you, we hear you. House Democrats will do everything we can to prevent this Republican Congress and this administration from going against the will of the people and further eroding your rights. Unfortunately, later this week, Republicans will resume their efforts to restrict access to maternal health care pushing through a bill designed to confuse, frighten and misinform people and criminalize medical providers, a cruel bill that singles out patients who are facing one of the worst days of their lives. In this moment, we should be doing everything we can to support women and their doctors, not attack them. So, on this anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we mourn what has been lost, and we redouble our efforts to restore your rights. We will never back down. We will always fight for your right to reproduce freedom. Thank you.
Video of the full press conference and Q&A can be viewed here.
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