A State of Crisis: Examining the Urgent Need to Protect and Expand Abortion Rights and Access

Chairwoman Maloney's Opening Statement [PDF]

Washington D.C. (September 21, 2021)—On Thursday, September 30, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. ET, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, the Chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, will hold a hearing to examine the threat to abortion rights and access posed by extreme anti-choice state governments and a Supreme Court that is hostile to reproductive rights.  The hearing will also evaluate actions the federal government can take to protect the right to abortion and expand access in light of these existential threats —including passing the Women’s Health Protection Act and putting an end to the Hyde Amendment.

On September 1, 2021, Texas’s Senate Bill 8 (S.B. 8)—one of the most extreme abortion bans in United States history—took effect after the Supreme Court declined to enjoin the law.  S.B. 8 bans abortion after six weeks, before many people even know they are pregnant, and makes no exceptions for cases of rape, incest, or fetal anomalies.  Under S.B. 8, for the first time private citizens—including those outside of Texas—are allowed to sue abortion providers or any person who aids a patient in getting an abortion after six weeks.  

In December, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a challenge to the constitutionality of Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.  Dobbs is widely seen as a test case to overturn Roe v. Wade, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the constitutional right to privacy protects a person’s right to have an abortion.  

The hearing will examine these multi-faceted, existential threats to abortion access, how these threats disproportionately harm communities that already experience health disparities, and the urgent need for federal action to protect and expand abortion rights and access.