Murray, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said GOP lawmakers across the nation “have already set their sights on taking away the right to travel.” “Let’s be really clear about what this means: They want to keep women captive in their states,” she said. “They want to punish women and anyone who can assist them in exercising their constitutional right to travel across our country to get the services they need in another state. I hope everyone really notices how extreme and how radical and how un-American this is.” Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, argued that the Senate should reject this “radical” bill because it would “give free rein to abortionists who perform abortion on demand.” He also argued that it “protects the greed, frankly, of woke companies who find it cheaper to pay for abortion and abortion tourism than maternity leave for their employees.” Cortez Masto, who filed a unanimous consent petition to announce the legislation, pointed to examples of lawmakers in states like Missouri, Texas and Arkansas who said they “want to pass bills to fine or prosecute women who travel for health care.” What GOP lawmakers across the country are proposing to restrict women from traveling for reproductive care is “just blatantly unconstitutional,” she continued. “It’s anti-women, anti-business and anti-provider,” she said. Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, who opposed the request, said in remarks on the Senate floor that the debate “isn’t just about the right to travel, and the right to health care is deeper than that, it’s the right to Zoe. .” “To be very clear, no state has banned interstate travel for adult women seeking an abortion,” Lankford added. “No state has done that. Now, I’m sure there are some people who are out there talking? Yes, but there are also in this Senate 5,000 bills that have been filed, and how many of those are actually going to move? As in every legislature across the country and everyone in this body knows it.” Lankford said Democrats are just trying to “flare up” and “raise the what-ifs.” Cortez Masto said, “all my legislation says is: Respect my state. We’re a choice state. We’ve made that decision as a state and if women want to travel to my state to seek services, and providers I want to provide services to them and employers want to help women travel and let the states do that.” CNN’s Ted Barrett contributed to this report.
