In the News

Many Democrats quickly criticized Thursday's affirmative action decision, including President Biden and Vice President Harris. Massachusetts Democratic Congresswoman and House Minority Whip Katherine Clark joins "America Decides" to discuss the Supreme Court ruling and how her party is planning to respond.

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Original story HERE.

A year after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization stripped women of nearly 50 years of constitutional protection to make their own health-care decisions, women have faced trauma and near-death experiences and been deprived of medical care. That includes women who never contemplated having an abortion. The Dobbs-aggravated shortage of doctors practicing obstetrics-gynecology, especially in rural areas, leaves millions of women without access to health care.

A recent KFF survey of 569 OB/GYNs underscores the health-care crisis Dobbs has wrought. Twenty percent of respondents “report they have personally felt constraints on their ability to provide care for miscarriages and other pregnancy-related medical emergencies since the Dobbs decision.” Forty-four percent of doctors “and six in ten practicing in states where abortion is banned or where there are gestational limits, say their decision-making autonomy has become worse since the Dobbs ruling.” And 36 percent nationally “say their ability to practice within the standard of care has become worse.”

And here’s the worst of it: “Most OBGYNs (68%) say the ruling has worsened their ability to manage pregnancy-related emergencies. Large shares also believe that the Dobbs decision has worsened pregnancy-related mortality (64%), racial and ethnic inequities in maternal health (70%) and the ability to attract new OBGYNs to the field (55%).”

And if advocates of forced birth thought they were creating a baby boom, they may have miscalculated. More than half of OB/GYNs nationally report that women are seeking contraception in greater numbers, especially through sterilization (43 percent) and IUDs and implants (47 percent). In short, women are making decisions that may preclude them from ever getting pregnant because they fear being trapped by forced-birth laws.

Given those findings and the trail of horror stories about women denied proper care, it’s no surprise that support for Roe v. Wade has never been higher. A recent NBC News poll found that 6 in 10 voters oppose the court’s action, including “nearly 80% of female voters ages 18-49, two-thirds of suburban women, 60% of independents and even a third of Republican voters.” Young voters are especially shaken by the decision. Nearly 75 percent of college students say their decision to stay at their college is at least somewhat affected by abortion laws, according to a Lumina Foundation-Gallup poll.

The New York Times reported on the shift in public opinion:

For the first time, a majority of Americans say abortion is ‘morally acceptable.’ Most now believe abortion laws are too strict. They are significantly more likely to identify, in the language of polls, as ‘pro-choice’ over ‘pro-life,’ for the first time in two decades. … While Republicans and those identifying as ‘pro-life’ have historically been most likely to see abortion as a litmus test, now they are less motivated by it, while Democrats and those identifying as “pro-choice” are far more so. …

[And] there were sudden and significant jumps in support for legalized abortion post-Dobbs among some groups, including Republican men and Black Protestants.

It’s not just polls that reveal the shift. In the 2022 midterms, numerous Democrats in swing seats leaned into the abortion issue and won. And a pro-choice judge notched a double-digit win in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race in April. Ballot propositions protecting abortion rights have won in all contests since Dobbs. At a time when Republicans are struggling to hold on to women and suburban voters, the abortion issue may substantially affect voting patterns for years to come.

House Democrats’ Pro-Choice Caucus and every House Democratic leader, including former speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), held a news conference Friday highlighting their effort to force an up-or-down vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act that would enshrine Roe in federal law. Democrats, who have 210 votes from their side for the discharge petition, challenged Republicans to come up with the eight additional votes needed to force a vote. Calling Dobbs part of the “Supreme Court hall of shame,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) excoriated the court, saying it had “restricted and limited and undermined freedom for women all across America.” A number of Democrats spoke passionately about the suffering inflicted on women by what they called a “corrupt” Supreme Court filled with “right-wing co-conspirators.”

Friday’s speakers decried the assault on personal “freedom,” a value Democrats appear more than ready to embrace as Republicans ban abortions, ban books and target the LGBTQ+ community. Women’s suffering and humiliation are motivating Democrats to accuse Republicans of turning women into second-class citizens. For years, many Democrats avoided even using the word “abortion”; now, they’re putting abortion in the larger context of freedom, dignity and self-determination.

In North Carolina on Saturday, Vice President Harris delivered a stirring speech, stressing that “extremist Republicans in Congress have proposed to ban abortion nationwide. Nationwide. But I have news for them: We’re not having that.” She added: “The majority of Americans, I do believe, agree that one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body.”

Moreover, Democrats leave little doubt they will put abortion front and center in 2024. On Friday, Pelosi vowed, “It played a big role in the last election. It will be even bigger in the next election.” Democrats clearly recognize that abortion access unites Democrats, independents and many Republicans. Harris, pointing out that 23 million women live in states with “extreme” abortion bans, declared on Saturday, “All of us are now called upon to advance the promise of freedom.”

I spoke to House Democratic Whip Katherine M. Clark (Mass.) in her Capitol Hill office on Friday. She said Dobbs “shocked but did not surprise” her because she had held out some small hope that the court would reconsider in the wake of the national outcry last year after Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s draft opinion leaked. The sort of GOP “extremism we are seeing,” she said, “is so out of step with their constituents.” Citing Republicans’ votes against birth control access (only eight House Republicans voted last year to support a bill to protect contraception) and against maternal care and parental leave, as well as GOP efforts to ban an FDA-approved drug used for not only abortion but also treatment after miscarriage, she sees a unified effort to “bludgeon” women and deny them health care.

Clark is incensed by the intrusion of courts and politicians into women’s “fundamental right to make their own decisions” about the most personal matters imaginable. “This is just a move to make women second-class citizens,” she declared. Do Democrats have the wherewithal to sustain the fight over years if need be? With a look of defiance, she insisted, “This is part of my mission. We are not shying away from this issue.”

Millions of women, and men, pray she is right.

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Original story HERE.

There’s another push in Congress to give federal protection for the right to access birth control after similar efforts failed last year.

Congressional Democrats have reintroduced the Right to Contraception Act, which codifies the right for individuals to access and use birth control and for healthcare providers to provide it, according to the bill’s sponsors.

“It protects the full range of FDA approved contraceptive methods including birth control pills, IUDs and emergency contraceptives like Plan B,” said Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC), a sponsor of the House bill.

“Your healthcare is your business,” said Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA). “This is fundamentally about freedom.”

Supporters say it’s necessary after last year’s U.S. Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade, which overturned the federal right to abortion.

It’s also in direct response to conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas signaling he wants the high court to reconsider birth control access, too.

“We have a good reason to be gravely concerned about access to contraception,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), a sponsor of the Senate bill. “The Right to Contraception Act would set the bare minimum standard that the right to contraception should be protected even if the Supreme Court overturns settled precedent.”

Nearly all U.S. women who have been sexually active have used some form of birth control at some point in their lives, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

The proposal in Congress comes as at least ten states have passed some kind of restriction on access to emergency contraception.

Those states include Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Dakota and Texas, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

This is the second time Congressional Democrats have introduced the bill.

It passed in the House last year, but it was blocked by Senate Republicans.

In last year’s House vote, 195 Republicans voted against the measure.

“H.R. 8373 is a trojan horse for more abortions,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers in July 2022. “It should be called the payouts for Planned Parenthood Act.”

Anti-abortion rights groups say the measure would override state and federal freedom of conscience laws and would exclude the application of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“Far from being a bill that simply allows for access to contraception, this bill seeks to bail out the abortion industry, trample conscience rights, and require uninhibited access to dangerous chemical abortion drugs,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

The bill is likely to fail again this year since there is a divided Congress, which includes a GOP-led House.

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Original story HERE.

The book Patricia Oliver is showing lawmakers this week would, she said, fit in well in a first-grade classroom. It has pretty illustrations, bright colors and large text.

But the subject is much darker and sadder than at first glance— the title is “Joaquin’s First School Shooting.” It has holes piercing through the book, so when you flip the pages there are four that the reader sees, to represent the number of times she said Joaquin Oliver, her son, was shot. Joaquin was one of the 17 people who died in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in 2018.

“It takes courage to be moving forward in every single issue, and that’s something that we have to appreciate about those that are willing to do it for others,” Oliver told the Globe, a necklace with Joaquin’s name dangling around her neck. She had appointments to meet with lawmakers to show them the book and had already met with about 20. “Joaquin was supposed to be here, and if he was lucky enough to have made it that day, he would be the first in line in this fight.”

On Thursday, Oliver stood outside the House of Representatives, with a collection of lawmakers, and people who had personally experienced the suffering that can be caused by government, whether through action or inaction.

Oliver was just one of several women hosted on Capitol Hill by Minority Whip Katherine Clark this week, to talk about the issues that have intersected suddenly with their lives and families. Though Democrats control the Senate and White House, they lack a meaningful majority in the Senate that prevents them from passing major legislation like, for example, sweeping gun reform. And for now the House of Representatives is controlled by Republicans, who largely oppose the types of reforms Oliver and the other women were calling for.

“This is not an issue that we cannot act on,” Clark said in an exclusive interview with the Globe in the Revere Democrat’s office, as she sat around a glass table with several of the women there to advocate for the day, using mass shootings as an example. “There are solutions and investments for all of this.”

In Clark’s office before the press conference, the women met for the first time. Oliver had come up from Florida for several days. Karen George had driven about four hours from Maryland to talk about the importance of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Cynthia Davis lives in DC and was there to talk about the importance of providing more child care funding.

Despite how different their experiences are, they immediately found commonalities in their respective causes.

Also among them was Amanda Zurawski, a Texas resident who needed an abortion last year because of a nonviable pregnancy, but was unable to get one. She said she faced life-threatening complications before her medical team could step in due to the state’s abortion restrictions. In a lawsuit filed in a state court, she and other plaintiffs alleged that the state’s laws regulating abortion are tying doctor’s hands and preventing them from providing care, leaving pregnant women in a “health care crisis.”

“This doesn’t get easier to tell,” Zurawski said as she teared up. “Especially since it was about this time last year.”

She said she’s still dealing with the fallout, emotionally and physically. She and her husband are still trying to have a baby, but it’s proven to be even harder. “It was hard the first time, and it’s even more difficult now for me to get pregnant.”

Recently she came to Capitol Hill and testified in a Senate hearing, where she called out her state’s Senators — Ted Cruz and John Cornyn — and said she “nearly died on their watch” as a result of abortion restrictions they support. They were not present in the room when she made the comments addressing them. She told the Globe she had not heard from either of them since. Cruz’s office did not respond to a request for comment; a spokesperson from Cornyn’s office said they would “let you know if I have anything to add on this” when asked if he’d responded to Zurawski’s remarks, or reached out to her since the hearing.

After the press conference, the women mingled. They hugged Democratic lawmakers. They took pictures together. Oliver was going on to more appointments with lawmakers. Zurawski walked away with a pink suitcase in tow. If action is going to happen by elected officials, it wouldn’t be today.

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Original story HERE. 

Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts is not only the top-ranking woman on the Democratic side of the House, she’s also the only woman in House Democratic leadership. The 59-year-old lawmaker, however, is used to breaking gender barriers. In 2021, Rep Clark became the first woman to become the Assistant Speaker of the House.

Know Your Value and “Morning Joe” recently visited the congresswoman in her office on Capitol Hill to discuss her journey, in addition to the best advice she received from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the latest on childcare relief legislation, and why paving the path for other women is so important.

Here’s what she said:

On the best advice she’s received from Nancy Pelosi

In her new role as House Whip, Congresswoman Clark is responsible for persuading her members to vote for the party’s position. And to do this, she learned a key piece of advice from her mentor, Rep. Pelosi on how to be successful. Clark recounted Pelosi telling her that “power will never be given to you, and you shouldn’t be afraid to take it.”

“How I interpret that is, know the power of the people you represent and know the power of being that voice for people who often feel they are overlooked in the process here in Congress, of government, in our economy, and feel left behind,” Rep. Clark said.

Whether it’s Roe v. Wade no longer being the law of the land, or the lack of healthcare many Americans still face, she’s taking Pelosi’s words of guidance into consideration. “All of those voices and people come with me, and they're right with me at the leadership table…to be that voice for children for families, for women, is one that I find gives me a strength and clarity.”

On why she decided to share the story of her own miscarriage

Last year the Congresswoman shared the story of her own miscarriage with the Boston Globe, hoping to spread awareness of the dangers of overturning Roe v Wade before it was ultimately banned last summer. In doing so, Clark expressed a vulnerability that many women, and men, in leadership roles hesitate to embrace. “I see the personal as politics,” Rep. Clark said, adding she prefers to see her vulnerability as a strength that she brings to her work. “Sometimes people, you know, look at the television, they watch the coverage of Congress, and they don't really see themselves or their families in their representatives. And I think it's important to say, I have this experience…”

On her best tips to negotiate and persuade

Being a good listener first and understanding the position or point of view of the people she is negotiating for are key components of the Congresswoman’s negotiating style. “I always think that if we understand where people are coming from you have a better chance of being able to get to yes,” Rep. Clark shared. “I also use a little tip that I discovered with three teenagers who often would tell you more in the car when you weren't looking directly at them. I find that elevator trips have the very similar effect on my colleagues, that when people are sort of looking at the elevator door, they can tend to tell you things they might not otherwise tell you.”

Why she’s optimistic childcare relief legislation will pass in 2023

“I’m determined. We have to do this,” said Rep. Clark. Early in 2021, the lawmaker introduced the Child Care is Infrastructure Act, which would make $10 billion in additional federal money available to renovate child care facilities, offer loan forgiveness for early educators and support on-campus child care for parents in school. She is also in favor of legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act, which is intended for semiconductor workers, but includes high quality and affordable childcare as a way to include childcare in infrastructure spending. That legislation was introduced by the Biden Administration in late February.

Childcare is one issue that the congresswoman said comes up repeatedly with voters. “We are going to continue to make sure that as we're handing out infrastructure money, the money to private businesses in collaboration with the government that childcare is part of the plan.”

The issue is personal for Clark. When first elected to Congress, Clark had quite the balancing act with three teenagers at home and two elderly parents who needed caretaking. Her mother was suffering from Alzheimer’s and her father from a debilitating stroke.

“I remember pulling in that driveway and being really torn often in tears about who do I go to. Do I relieve my husband and go see my kids and hear about their week? Or do I go and check in with my parents and make sure they have what they need? Do they have the groceries they need? And you know I have a great spouse who was there to help me but that is not the story for so many families. So, let's get those policies in that that makes sense. Let's have paid family leave paid sick days so that people don't have to make a choice between keeping a job and taking care of their loved ones …”

On how she finds power in being the only woman in the room.

Throughout her career Rep. Clark has often found that she is the only woman in the room. Instead of being intimidated, she found power in it. She recalled a meeting when she was working on childcare legislation for the state of Massachusetts and was debating on the ideal length of the workday and how long children should be in childcare.

“The men in the room had forgotten that you also need childcare in the time that you are traveling to and from work. And being the mom who was often coming in right as childcare was closing and starting to add a large bind for every minute you were late, it's important to be that one to say, ‘this isn't how it works.’”

On imagining her career after 50

Rep. Clark said she never imagined a career in politics, let alone in her 50s and beyond. But now that she is climbed the ranks and doing what she loves, she urged women, “Don't be afraid to take a risk. But don't be afraid to fail. I certainly have lost a political campaign and it was painful. But you know, just push yourself because we're here waiting for you...And don't let anybody tell you you're too young or certainly too old to reinvent yourself, and keep moving towards whatever the work is that really is meaningful to you.”

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Original story HERE.