Washington, D.C. – Today, on the third anniversary of the United States Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning the longstanding protections of Roe v. Wade, Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander released the following statement:

 

“As a daughter of the Live Free or Die state, I know women in America cannot live freely without full control of our bodies and full access to reproductive and maternal health care. When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade three years ago today, they sent us back in time by generations. That decision had serious consequences for women and families across our country, including my own.

 

“Two years ago, when I was almost 20 weeks pregnant, my husband Jake and I found out that we had lost our son. I needed immediate inpatient care, but doctors were inundated with patients traveling north from states with abortion bans and other draconian post-Roe restrictions. And ultimately, I was forced to manage a stillbirth by myself in a hotel bathtub.

 

“It is medieval times for women’s health in the United States of America. And while I ultimately was able to access the health care I needed, far too many women across America cannot.

 

“That’s wrong. And that’s why, in Congress, I am fighting with everything I’ve got to restore reproductive freedom and build a reliable, affordable system of health care for all Granite Staters.”

 

Background: 

Congresswoman Goodlander is a fierce advocate for reproductive freedom. She was serving as a law clerk for Justice Stephen Breyer on the United States Supreme Court when Roe v. Wade was first called into question, and was working at the Department of Justice in 2022 when the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Dobbs. Following the ruling, she helped the Justice Department launch the first-ever Reproductive Rights Task Force to protect reproductive freedom under federal law by monitoring and evaluating state and local laws that threaten to infringe on federal protections for reproductive care, including laws that impose criminal and civil penalties on those seeking an abortion or laws that ban or limit access to mifepristone despite the expert judgment of the Food and Drug Administration.

 

In Congress, Goodlander is helping lead legislation and other efforts to protect and restore reproductive freedom and access to care:

 

• She was a hard no on the GOP’s Big, Bad Budget Bill that poses a grave threat to reproductive freedom and maternal and women’s health.

   

  • Over 40% of births in the U.S. are covered by Medicaid, and the bill makes the largest cuts to Medicaid in American history— full stop.
     

  • The bill also eliminates Title X and prohibits all federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which will cost millions of women across the country and the Granite State access to basic preventative health care, from cancer screenings, to contraception, to STI testing and treatment. 

     

• She is an original cosponsor of the Women’s Health Protection Act, which is being reintroduced for the 119th Congress, to re-establish a nationwide right to access abortion care throughout the United States.

 

• She’s an original cosponsor of the Right to Contraception Act, legislation to codify the right for Americans to access contraception and to protect the right of health care providers to provide contraceptives.

   

• She is a cosponsor of the Stop Comstock Act, bicameral legislation to prevent the misuse of the antiquated and unconstitutional statute, the Comstock Act, which prohibits the mailing of medication abortion and other materials used in abortion procedures. 

 

• As a member of the Rapid Response and Litigation Task Force, Goodlander is supportive of the suit filed on April 24 by the ACLU and National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association in response to this Administration’s Title X funding cuts, and signed a letter urging Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to restore all appropriated funding for Title X providers – including in New Hampshire – and coordinate an urgent meeting on the matter.

   

  • Earlier this year, Goodlander visited Planned Parenthood of Northern New England to discuss the impacts that Title X funding would have on their ability to provide services.

     

• She is an original cosponsor of the TOTAL Care Act, which will allow TRICARE Prime beneficiaries to access obstetrical and gynecological care without needing a referral. TRICARE Prime is a health care program for active duty service members, retirees, and their families.

 

• She sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth slamming his decision to rescind a critical policy that allows service members to be reimbursed for travel and transportation to receive reproductive care they need but cannot access through military healthcare currently available.

 

• She sent a letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins, opposing any effort to rescind or replace the final rule entitled “Reproductive Health Services,” which ensures veterans, and their eligible family members and caregivers, can access abortion care and counseling through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

 

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