WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Senator Rosen (D-NV) joined Senators Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Patty Murray (D-WA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and dozens of their colleagues in introducing the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act of 2022. This legislation would make it clear that it is illegal for anti-choice states to limit women’s travel for reproductive care, and would empower the Attorney General and impacted individuals to bring civil action against those who restrict a woman’s right to cross state lines.
“In the fallout of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, anti-choice states across the country are enacting rigid restrictions on women’s ability to travel across state lines to seek the reproductive care they need,” said Senator Rosen. “This legislation will help protect the rights of those women to cross state lines in order to receive proper care, and the doctors and other medical providers who treat them.”
“As women’s reproductive rights are attacked across the country, we must do everything we can to protect women who will be forced to cross state lines to receive abortion services,” said Senator Cortez Masto. “This legislation would make it clear that anti-choice states can’t prosecute women who travel to another state for reproductive care, and it would also protect reproductive health care providers and others who help women travel for the care they need and deserve.”
Legislation introduced in Missouri and draft legislation proposed by anti-choice extremists make clear that interstate travel for reproductive health care is under attack. The Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act of 2022 underscores the Constitutional protections for interstate travel and provides redress for women whose rights are violated. The legislation would also protect health care providers in pro-choice states like Nevada from prosecution and lawsuits for serving individuals traveling from other states.
Senator Rosen has been a leader in standing up against anti-choice attacks on reproductive rights. In June, Senator Rosen voted in support of the Women’s Health Protection Act, legislation she helped introduce to protect the right to access reproductive health care and provide a safeguard against dangerous state-level abortion bans and restrictions. She also joined 33 of her Senate colleagues in a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to take bold action to protect reproductive rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
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