(PITTSBURGH, PA) – Congresswoman Summer Lee (PA-12) issued the following statement on the Texas court ruling on the medication abortion drug mifepristone. 

“Republicans sit silently as kids are killed in schools. They sit silently as kids drink lead water and sit silently as kids can’t afford school meals. Now, Judge Kacsmaryk wants to stand up and force birth by outlawing abortion pills nationwide.” 

“Abortion is health care and health care is a human right, not a luxury, or privilege.” Lee added, “Reproductive health is not just a women’s rights issue, it’s an economic justice, racial justice, gender justice, trans rights & workers’ rights issue. Attacks on reproductive health care have harsh ripple effects and any attempt to chip away our reproductive rights are attacks that fall hardest on the most marginalized communities that already lack necessary access to care.”

“This is exactly why women in PA and across the country turned out in droves against Republicans in November. We won’t go back and we won’t give in. We’re only getting started.”

Last month, Lee led a special order hour on the right-wing Judiciary’s attacks on our freedoms saying “The most marginalized folks bear the brunt of the reactionary right-wing judiciary’s attacks. Black folks, brown folks, trans folks, poor folks, and otherwise marginalized folks. It’s those who are denied access to adequate maternal health care by the wealthiest country on earth that are subjected to forced birth.”

On Saturday, Lee joined Rep. Jasmine Crockette (D-TX) in a letter calling on the Biden Administration to use all means possible to preserve FDA approval for Mifepristone and protect access to these treatments nationwide.

Lee is a proud cosponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act, the Abortion is Health Care Everywhere Act of 2023, Resolution in Support of the Sixth Annual Black Maternal Health Week, the Global Health, Empowerment and Rights (HER) Act, and the Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation (SAD) Act.