• The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman is planning a hearing on the "grim reality of a post-Roe America."
  • The hearing will take place on July 12, following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade.
  • "Americans are waking up in a country where they have fewer rights than their parents and grandparents," he said.

On the heels of a Supreme Court decision that revokes the constitutional right to an abortion, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced a hearing on the "grim reality" of life in the United States in the ruling's aftermath.

"Today's decision eliminates a federally protected constitutional right that has been the law for nearly half a century," said Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin in a statement. "As a result, millions of Americans are waking up in a country where they have fewer rights than their parents and grandparents."

The hearing is set for July 12, the day after the Senate returns from its two-week July 4 recess.

"The bottom line: on critical, personal choices involving a woman's right to make reproductive decisions about her own body, do you trust her or the government?  The Supreme Court now says a woman's right to privacy does not extend to the most personal, private choice she will ever face," said Durbin. "The Senate Judiciary Committee will explore the grim reality of a post-Roe America in a hearing next month."

Durbin, the chamber's number two Democrat, recently led the high-profile confirmation hearings from Supreme Court Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson.

"The Court's decision to erase the right to access an abortion will not only lead to the denial of critical health care services, but also criminal consequences for women and health care providers in states eager to embrace draconian restrictions," he said. "I will keep fighting to enshrine into law a woman's right to make her own reproductive choices. We cannot let our children inherit a nation that is less free and more dangerous than the one their parents grew up in."

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the lead Republican on the committee, took a different approach to the ruling.

In a tweet, he said the ruling "means that the right of the unborn are no longer in jeopardy" and "takes policymaking out of the hands of unelected judges."

 

 

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