Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07)
Ahead of Dobbs Anniversary, Lawmakers Slam GOP Budget That Slashes Health Care Coverage, Defunds Planned Parenthood
Pressley Shines Light on the Life-Saving Work of Planned Parenthood, Underscores Critical Need to Confront Converging Black Maternal Mortality and Reproductive Justice Crises that Cost Adriana Smith her Life
Video
BOSTON – Today, ahead of the third anniversary of the Dobbs decision that dismantled the basic right to abortion care, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Co-Chair of the Reproductive Freedom Caucus, and the women of the Massachusetts delegation, Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Rep. Lori Trahan (MA-03) joined Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts President Dominique Lee for a press conference in solidarity with Planned Parenthood as they collectively fight to stop Republicans’ latest attack on reproductive freedom in the GOP’s Big, Ugly Bill.
Their advocacy comes as Donald Trump and Republicans are advancing a cruel budget reconciliation bill that would defund Planned Parenthood health centers, bar private health insurers on the ACA marketplace from offering abortion coverage, and slash Medicaid health care coverage — leaving over 300,000 Massachusetts residents unable to access basic health care services.
“As we mark three years since the devastating day the Supreme Court denied us our bodily autonomy and ripped away the basic right to abortion care in America, we recommit to fighting for families across this country to access the basic medical care they need to survive, to be safe in birth, to be treated with human dignity,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Co-Chair of the House Reproductive Freedom Caucus. “It starts by defeating Republicans’ Big Ugly Bill – their shameful reconciliation bill that would put necessary health care further out of reach for millions of people and would drastically defund Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood clinics across this nation are quite literally saving lives – often the only option for miles for life saving cancer screenings, affordable birth control, and compassionate prenatal care. We will never yield to Trump and Republicans’ agenda to make America a nation of forced birth – this is not an inevitability, and I’m proud to join Whip Clark, Senator Warren, and Congresswoman Trahan in standing with Planned Parenthood in our fight to restore true bodily autonomy and reproductive justice.”
“Tomorrow will mark three years since Trump’s Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. For three years, the Republicans have marched nonstop toward their ultimate goal of a national abortion ban — with total control over women’s health care in every state, including Massachusetts,” said Whip Clark. “And now, we have their Big, Ugly Betrayal of Women Budget, which will impose the single biggest health care cut in our country’s history and inflict the biggest assault on women’s health care since Dobbs. To put it simply, this is a life-and-death fight every day. Republicans are choosing to make life harder and more expensive and more dangerous for America’s 170 million women and girls. All to help America’s 900 billionaires.”
“Since Trump’s Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, we’ve seen a new form of hell at every turn. Now, Republicans in Congress are on track to pass a bill that amounts to a backdoor ban on abortion — even in states where it’s protected. Republicans’ bill to cut Medicaid and defund Planned Parenthood is a one-two punch to women across the country, and we are not going to let them get away with it,” said Senator Warren.
“Three years ago, Donald Trump’s Supreme Court opened the floodgates to extreme abortion bans in GOP-controlled states across the country – bans that criminalize doctors, endanger women’s lives, and force survivors of rape to carry pregnancies against their will,” said Rep. Trahan. “Now, Republicans in Washington are trying to punish states like Massachusetts for protecting access to abortion by withholding federal health care funding for families who need it most. It’s a coordinated effort to force every state to fall in line with Trump’s anti-abortion, anti-woman agenda, and we have to do everything in our power to stop it from passing.”
“The so-called ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ is a backdoor abortion ban, even in safe-haven states like Massachusetts,” said Dominique Lee, president of the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts. “This bill would ‘defund’ Planned Parenthood by blocking Medicaid reimbursement, which could impact half of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts’ budget. PPLM serves more than 30,000 patients annually, and nearly 40% of them are on Medicaid. If this bill passes, it won’t matter that abortion is legal here. People could lose access to abortion, birth control, STI testing, cancer screenings and other care from the provider they trust most. Planned Parenthood will not abandon our patients, our staff, or our communities, but we need everyone with us to help stop this attack on people’s health and freedom.”
A transcript of Congresswoman Pressley’s opening remarks is available below and the video is available here.
Transcript: Pressley, Clark, Warren, Trahan Stand with Planned Parenthood, Condemn Proposed Cuts to Reproductive Health Care Under GOP’s Big Ugly Bill
Boston, MA
June 23, 2025
Good morning. In a couple of days, our daughter, Cora, will turn 17, and as we’re looking at colleges, you know, one factor that shapes that decision – and it’s a key factor – is where she’ll be able to access healthcare. That’s now a part of our calculus and our decision-making.
This morning, she asked me, in the wake of recent events in the Middle East, “Are we going to be okay?”
She has shared with me her concerns for classmates who are immigrants, who have expressed anxiety and fear about going away for a vacation, and whether or not they’ll be able to come back into the country – and they were born here.
So every day that she asks me, “Are we going to be okay?” – it becomes harder and harder to answer that question with confidence that “Yes, we will be.”
But standing here shoulder-to-shoulder with my colleagues, you certainly fortify me in this work and in that belief that we will be okay and we will get to the other side of this. Thank you all for being here today.
I want to echo the sentiment offered by our Whip a moment ago that Congress should do everything in its power to reign in Trump and to prevent an endless war in Iran.
I want to underscore the urgency of protecting our reproductive freedom – I reiterate this in my role as the Co-Chair of the House Reproductive Freedom Caucus.
So we have to do everything to protect our reproductive freedom and preventing Republicans’ shameful – and it is shameful – reconciliation bill from putting necessary health care further out of reach for millions of Americans.
When we say an abortion ban, what does that really mean?
A nation of forced birth.
A nation of forced birth – what could be more violent than that?
What could be more void of common sense and compassion in a country that does not yet have universal childcare, paid leave – an administration that seems to be hostile towards women, attacking our freedoms at every turn, degrading Head Start.
There are 80 million Medicaid recipients in this country. 40% of births in this country are covered by Medicaid.
So I want to say thank you to our partners in good at Planned Parenthood, who labor in love day in and day out, navigating a very perilous and unpredictable terrain. Thank you for showing up for Massachusetts to provide our constituents with essential health care.
And I’ll just share when I came here in 1992 to, you know, pursue a higher learning – in a city where I did not know a soul – and found myself experiencing debilitating pain, I came to Planned Parenthood and was diagnosed with uterine fibroids.
And I was met with compassion and community and embrace, and that meant everything.
Again, I did not know a soul. I knew no one. But I knew that I could get answers and help with Planned Parenthood.
Later, as a survivor of campus sexual assault, I also returned to Planned Parenthood for counseling and STI testing. So I just want to personally, again, just express my heartfelt gratitude for the entire team here, from your security to providers and the like.
Every time we’re in Washington and folks across the aisle – mostly, but not only, white men – start to attack the critical work of Planned Parenthood, I know the moment they open their mouth that they’ve never sat across from a dedicated Planned Parenthood provider or patient, because if they had, they would understand the vital importance of this work.
Planned Parenthood is often the only accessible health care provider for families. In the Massachusetts seventh, we are fortunate to have a real density of health care services – but in many parts of the country, the only place you can access care for miles is a Planned Parenthood.
And Planned Parenthood clinics across this nation are quite literally saving lives. Planned Parenthood is often the only option for miles for life saving cancer screenings.
Regardless of zip code, they are the trusted provider folks turn to for preventative and routine medical care. Planned Parenthood is the place you can go to to get affordable birth control and compassionate prenatal care.
The attacks on Planned Parenthood are nothing new. In this moment, they are far more coordinated and sinister than we have ever seen, however.
Those who aim to rob people of this essential health care in their communities are using every tool – the courts, complicit state houses in many states, and notably this Big Ugly Bill in Congress.
Imagine having the full power and authority of the United States government, controlling the White House and the Senate, and you choose to go after cancer screenings for mothers.
The cruelty is the point.
At this point, Republicans can’t deny that they’re actually in the business of making people across America sicker, poor and more vulnerable.
I walked in here today with a heavy heart, with Adriana Smith on my mind.
Adriana Smith was a 30-year-old nurse and the mother to a vibrant six-year-old when she experienced debilitating headaches – her pain was dismissed, not believed. She was sent home from the hospital without the care she needed. She woke up gasping for air, arrived at the hospital, and shortly thereafter, was declared brain dead. The blood clots the doctors had missed had claimed her life.
But to be a black woman in America means that not only was Adriana’s pain dismissed and her son robbed of a mother – no, because of an extreme abortion ban in Georgia, the hospital stated that they could not take her off of life support.
And because she was nine weeks pregnant when she was declared brain dead, about a month past a missed period, the hospital would not allow Adriana’s family to make sensitive end of life medical decisions for their loved one. The hospital made her body an incubator.
This week, baby Chance was delivered by a posthumous emergency C section and remains in the NICU. Adriana’s family was finally able to lay her to rest and to pick up the pieces as they navigate their deep grief.
I wish I could say that Adriana’s story is a horrific anomaly, but we are experiencing up close the converging crises of black maternal mortality and denials of essential abortion care in this post Dobbs decision world.
None of us are free until all of us are free.
So this week, as we mark the three years since the devastating day the Supreme Court denied us our bodily autonomy and ripped away the basic right to abortion care in America, we recommit to fighting for families across this country to access the basic medical care they need to survive, to be safe in birth, to be treated with human dignity.
This is not an inevitability.
A more just America is possible, and it starts by defeating this Big Ugly Bill before it dismantles essential health care in America.
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