- 6/17/2025
On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) led a Senate Democrats press briefing on a "backdoor abortion ban" included in the Republican reconciliation legislation.
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00:00It's being nice.
00:02Well, good morning.
00:04And, yeah, come on up here, Tammy.
00:06Well, you know, there is a lot to be mad about in the Republicans' big, ugly betrayal bill,
00:11and I want to make sure one hugely important issue does not get missed,
00:17because I've come to know by now there is not a day that ends in Y
00:22where Republicans are not trying to ban abortion here in Congress.
00:28Republicans just can't help themselves.
00:30If they can find a way to attack abortion care, they do it.
00:34And wouldn't you know it, they snuck what essentially amounts to a backdoor abortion ban
00:40into the health provisions of this big, ugly betrayal.
00:45That's right.
00:46Not only does the Republican monstrosity of a bill make health care more expensive and harder to get,
00:53they are also trying to stop health plans from covering abortion altogether.
00:59This bill would effectively ban health insurance on the ACA marketplaces from covering abortion.
01:07This would send a shockwave through the country and put abortion care out of reach for women.
01:14It would be a nightmare for states like mine that require plans to cover abortion,
01:19and it would be yet another blow for women across the country.
01:23As abortion access gets pushed further and further out of reach by right-wing politicians
01:29who think they should get to make deeply personal decisions about women's health and their lives.
01:36And the attacks don't stop there,
01:38because Republicans want to shut the doors of one of the biggest health care providers in our country.
01:44They want to defund Planned Parenthood.
01:47That is wildly unpopular with the American people,
01:51and it is wildly dangerous for patients who turn to Planned Parenthood for a very wide spectrum of care,
01:59including cancer screenings and pap smears and birth control.
02:04And if it were successful, Republicans would be closing the doors to 200 health centers,
02:10and that includes cutting the number of Planned Parenthood health centers in states with abortion access by half
02:18and stripping away people's access to abortion and other reproductive health care.
02:23It is hard to understand how devastating that would be.
02:28We are talking clinics shuttering across the country, overwhelmingly in states where abortion is legal.
02:36We are talking women left with no options for the care that they need.
02:42It doesn't matter if you are a rape survivor or if you have a medical emergency
02:47or if you simply don't want to become a parent.
02:51Whatever your reason, whatever state you are in,
02:54if Republicans get their way, abortion care will be a lot more expensive and a lot less accessible.
03:00For some patients, it will be simply impossible to get the care they need regardless of how badly they need it.
03:08We have already seen with painful clarity how dangerous abortion bans can be for patients.
03:16We have already seen patients pushed to the brink and even killed because they could not get the care they needed.
03:23And now Republicans are about to mark the anniversary of the Dobbs decision by taking their extremism to new heights.
03:33We are not going to be silent about this big, ugly betrayal, including what it means for reproductive rights.
03:40We're not going to be silent about Republicans' backdoor efforts to ban abortion nationwide.
03:46And we're not going to stop pushing back to make sure this bill goes nowhere except the garbage bin.
03:54Thank you, Senator Murray, who has been such a great leader on this issue, as well as Senator Baldwin.
04:01I'm proud to be joined by them and our guests from Planned Parenthood and the Guttmacher Institute.
04:07We're here today to decry the backdoor abortion ban that Republicans have put in to their reconciliation bill,
04:19to their appropriations reconciliation bill.
04:23We're going to fight it with everything we have.
04:26It is wildly unpopular with the American people.
04:29Just you look at every corner of America, and Americans want to preserve a woman's right to choose.
04:38The Dobbs case reversed that.
04:41The Supreme Court, stacked by hard right ideologues, undid abortion rights in the awful Dobbs case.
04:55Reversing Roe.
04:58Three years later, 21 states following through have significantly restricted the right to choose.
05:06Fourteen have total abortion bans.
05:08But that's not good enough for our Republican colleagues.
05:13They want every state to have a ban.
05:16And what they do is they make abortion inaccessible to so many millions of women who want them.
05:24In states like Texas, maternal mortality is spiking.
05:32Since Dobbs, one in five people have to travel great distances across state lines and wait weeks just to get care.
05:41And just think about it.
05:43A woman, it's a difficult decision for women, many women.
05:47And then to make them travel and be alone and find a hotel room and then go to a clinic that they're not even familiar with under these traumatic circumstances.
05:59That alone is cruel enough.
06:01But these fanatics, these anti-choice fanatics, will stop at nothing.
06:06And when we hear these horrible statistics and what's happening, what's the reaction of Senate Republicans?
06:13They double down.
06:16They want to double their efforts on their crusade against women's health care and their right to choose.
06:22Right now, as we speak, Republicans are trying to jam through one of the most extreme radical provisions deep in this big, ugly betrayal.
06:32Two nasty provisions.
06:34One was in the House.
06:37Now they've added another one to defund Planned Parenthood and eliminate coverage for comprehensive reproductive care from the marketplace,
06:47the ACA marketplace, adding tens of millions more women who will not have access to the right to choose.
06:55Under the Republican bill, 200 Planned Parenthood centers would close.
06:59More than 90% of these closures would be in states where abortion is legal,
07:04where the voters of the state, the people of the state, have decided they want to keep the right to choose for women.
07:10So don't let Republicans try to tell you this is about states' rights.
07:13That's not what they're trying to do.
07:15This is a national bill.
07:16If they believed in state rights, they'd have no provisions, neither of these provisions in the bill.
07:22In all, under these awful provisions, one in four abortion providers nationwide would be eliminated.
07:31One in four.
07:34And on ACA coverage, Republicans are trying to prevent tens of millions of Americans who get health coverage from their state marketplace from being able to access abortion.
07:44This is not alone what's bad in the bill.
07:47The Medicaid cuts are even worse.
07:49You couldn't think the House bill, you couldn't think the Senate could do worse than the House when it came to Medicaid, but they sure did.
07:57It means Republicans are looking to rip away health care from millions more Americans.
08:03Americans, the callousness doesn't stop there.
08:06They're also fighting to take Americans' rights away in terms of reproductive rights.
08:13So let's make no mistake about it.
08:15This is a backdoor abortion ban snuck into the bill by the Republican senators because they, unlike their constituencies, are vehemently anti-choice.
08:28Well, right now, Senate Democrats will fight these devastating and deadly measures with everything we got, everything, including the birdbath.
08:40One of these provisions might well be susceptible to the birdbath.
08:45We don't know, but we're certainly going to make the argument against both provisions.
08:49And they both might be susceptible, one a little more than the other.
08:52But the Senate Democrats, we stand together.
08:56We fight back against Republicans every step of the way.
09:00And because, as Abe Lincoln said, public sentiment does everything and public sentiment is completely on our side, we will win this fight.
09:08We will never stop fighting until we do.
09:10Tammy Baldwin.
09:12Thank you, Chuck.
09:16Thank you, Mr. Leader.
09:18Good morning.
09:19And I want to start and take a moment to reflect on the events over the weekend.
09:25The senseless, abhorrent, cowardly events in Minnesota hit very close to home for my constituents who are grieving alongside our Midwestern neighbors.
09:35And sadly, for those from Planned Parenthood and the reproductive rights community, too.
09:41My heart goes out to the victims, those grieving, those fighting for their lives, and those who are scared.
09:47And anyone who's impacted by this tragedy.
09:51We are lucky for the law enforcement who put their lives on the line to apprehend the suspect and prevent further heartbreak.
10:00This kind of political violence is simply unacceptable, and it is not who we are as a country.
10:07And we must come together to condemn this kind of hate wherever it exists and remind ourselves that we are better than this.
10:16I am honored to join my colleagues and reproductive rights leaders to spotlight yet another way this Republican budget bill
10:25will take away health care from Americans and gut their right to choose.
10:32Planned Parenthood is truly a saving grace for so many in my state and across the country.
10:40For Americans, Planned Parenthood clinics, for some of them, they're the only option they have for affordable health care,
10:49for basic reproductive care, to life-saving cancer screenings.
10:53It's also often the only place women can get abortion care and control their own bodies and their own futures.
11:02In a state like Wisconsin, where we live through 15 months with no access to abortion care because of a law passed in 1849,
11:14today there are just a few Planned Parenthood clinics providing abortion services in three counties,
11:23which means 69 counties in Wisconsin have no access.
11:29If these Planned Parenthood clinics were to close, women in my state could be left again with no other option than to leave the state
11:38just to get the care that they need.
11:41If these clinics close, Republicans would be further widening health care deserts in rural Wisconsin,
11:49making more of our friends, neighbors, and colleagues delay or forego care because they can't afford it
11:58or they can't take the time off work or find child care to drive hours to see a doctor.
12:05But as we all know, Planned Parenthood and places that offer reproductive care are our Republican colleagues' favorite target.
12:14They make Planned Parenthood a punchline to their jokes and a subject line to their fundraising emails.
12:22What they neglect to admit is it's a lifeline for our constituents.
12:28This bill says that the mother of three, the young woman trying to make ends meet, the veteran in need of care,
12:36and anyone else on Medicaid can't use their coverage at Planned Parenthood for annual checkups, cancer screenings, or birth control.
12:46We're not just talking about abortion.
12:49We're talking about basic health care that everyone needs and that my Republican colleagues say they support.
12:57But by doing this, they are one step closer to their North Star, a national abortion ban.
13:05So it seems they're okay with these devastating consequences.
13:09Even worse, it is also in service of finding every dollar that they can to pay for their scheme to rig the tax code for big corporations and their wealthy friends.
13:23The more I think about it, I'm struck by the idea that this provision so perfectly captures what this Republican Party has come to stand for.
13:33To tilt the tax code in favor of the rich and huge corporations at all costs.
13:39And to take away a woman's right to choose.
13:43We're not going silently into the night.
13:47At the ballot box, in poll after poll, and what I hear as I travel the state is that women want their right to choose.
13:55They want their fundamental freedoms back.
13:57They want affordable health care.
13:59They want more affordable health care options.
14:01This Republican bill would do just the opposite.
14:05Jacking up health care costs, limiting affordable options, and taking away more women's rights to control their own bodies.
14:15It's wrong.
14:17It's not what Americans want.
14:19And we're going to fight it.
14:23Our next speaker is Alexis McGill Johnson.
14:27She's the President and CEO of Planned Parenthood and has done a great, great job.
14:33Thank you, Alexis.
14:37Thank you, Leader Schumer.
14:39Thank you, Senator Murray.
14:40Thank you, Senator Baldwin, for being such fierce champions today.
14:44We are here because Republicans want to use their big, bad betrayal of a reconciliation bill to make it even harder to get an abortion in the United States.
14:53And they are willing to harm patients across the country to do it.
14:57Let me explain.
14:59Last month, House Republicans voted to defund Planned Parenthood health centers.
15:04And in the coming days, it is very possible the Senate could do the same.
15:08If President Trump signs this into law, the consequences would be catastrophic.
15:13Nearly 200 Planned Parenthood health centers could close.
15:17More than 1.1 million patients could lose access to care, birth control, wellness visits, STI tests, cancer screenings, and more.
15:26More than 50 percent of the health centers at risk of closure are in states, as they've said, where abortion is still legal.
15:34These closures could eliminate one in four abortion providers nationwide.
15:40Let's call defunding Planned Parenthood what it is, a backdoor abortion ban.
15:46The harm doesn't stop there.
15:48They've also snuck a provision that would bar ACA marketplace plans that would include abortion coverage from receiving federal subsidies.
15:56And that means that people won't be able to use the health insurance they pay to get the care they need.
16:01Our opponents keep saying their goal is only to avoid subsidizing abortion care.
16:07But the truth is, federal dollars already don't cover abortion care, except in some very specific, very rare circumstances.
16:16So when you look at the whole picture, it really comes into focus.
16:19Their real goal is to make it harder for everyone to get an abortion.
16:24No one wants this to happen, and there's still time to stop this bill.
16:28We are asking the 19 million Planned Parenthood supporters and the majority of people in this country who want abortion to be legal to stand up and make their voices heard.
16:39Call and email your members of Congress and ask them to oppose this bill.
16:44Let's keep marching and shouting and rallying, because I know together we can defeat this outrageous attack.
16:50Thank you, Alexis.
16:51Now we have Amy, who's Director of Federal Policy from the Guttmacher Institute.
16:58Amy Friedrich Karnik, she'll spell it for you.
17:04Hello.
17:07My name is Amy Friedrich Karnik, and I thank Senator Schumer for having us here today.
17:12The Guttmacher Institute is a nonpartisan research and policy organization dedicated to advancing reproductive health access for all people.
17:21It is clear that this reconciliation bill could have sweeping consequences for the national landscape of reproductive health care access, serving as a backdoor abortion ban.
17:32All types of sexual and reproductive health care are inextricably linked.
17:36So when restrictive policies are aimed at one form of reproductive health care, or they target a provider like Planned Parenthood, our research shows that the implications are broad and have a ripple effect.
17:48By attempting to exclude Planned Parenthood health centers from federal funding streams, this bill would make abortion care even more inaccessible.
17:56As you heard, it puts 200 Planned Parenthood clinics, the majority of which provide abortion care, at risk of shutting their doors.
18:05The landscape of abortion access is already incredibly fractured.
18:0813 states are currently enforcing total abortion bans, and many others have severe restrictions, and many clinics have already been forced to close since Dobbs.
18:18And for the over 1 million people who obtained clinician-provided abortion care last year, our data demonstrate that approximately 155,000 of them crossed state lines to access this care in 2024.
18:32Closing even one clinic can impact access to care in a community, and for patients who are forced to travel.
18:39And the scale at which this reconciliation package threatens to decimate access to abortion care by discriminating against Planned Parenthood would be devastating for patients and communities around the country.
18:51It's a backdoor abortion ban.
18:54Furthermore, by excluding Planned Parenthood from federal funding streams, the entire ecosystem of family planning clinics would be impacted.
19:01Guttmacher research has demonstrated that federally qualified health centers, or FQHCs, and health departments would not be able to absorb the patients that would be in need of contraceptive care if the defund provision became law.
19:16For example, FQHCs would need to increase capacity by 56% or see an additional 1 million contraception patients.
19:24And all of that is before we get to the other provision in the bill that seeks to bar coverage of abortion care under private plans in the ACA marketplace.
19:33Abortion coverage on both public and private insurance plans is already severely limited and difficult to access, and this provision seeks to further restrict this coverage.
19:43Not only could it eliminate abortion coverage for individuals insured through the marketplace, but it could result in private insurers eliminating abortion coverage for all beneficiaries in order to avoid the burden of maintaining separate plan options.
19:57We urge senators to see this bill for what it is, a thinly veiled attempt to restrict reproductive freedom and to oppose it.
20:06Thank you, Amy.
20:07Okay.
20:08We'll take questions.
20:09Yes.
20:10So, for the Senate GOP proposal, it includes requirements for able-bodied adults and those with children that are over 14 years old,
20:22working or seeking employment or volunteering or in school for 20 hours a week.
20:28What is your position on Medicaid work requirements and do able-bodied adults need to be working or looking for employment to get...
20:37Look, the bottom line is that the Republicans are trying to cut Medicaid for people who need it.
20:46And the work requirements, as we saw in Georgia, do you know how many people now are on Medicaid in Georgia after they put in similar work requirements?
20:565,000 out of 800,000 eligible.
20:59So, this is a backdoor ruse to just kick people off Medicaid, millions of people off Medicaid.
21:05Democrats are going to fight it all the way.
21:07Anyone else?
21:08All right.
21:09I'm going to say a word or two about our meeting a few minutes ago.
21:15First, I want to say that the Capitol Hill police have been silent heroes behind the scenes keeping members safe.
21:24But we are seeing a dramatic increase in threats against senators, congressmen, public officials, and throughout America.
21:34And these attacks are not just attacks on individuals, but on democracy, on our way of life, on what we believe in.
21:44And they're an attempt to intimidate people not to do their jobs, not to run for office.
21:51It's gross.
21:52It's disgusting.
21:54We must take immediate steps to ensure the safety of members.
22:00And that includes increased funding for the Capitol Police.
22:05And there was agreement in our meeting between Democrats and Republicans that we ought to have that increased funding.
22:11The Republicans are such hypocrites.
22:14Today, the Trump administration cut the AIMED program, A-I-M-E-D.
22:21That's a program aimed to spot lone wolf actor violence, violent people, violent extremists.
22:30Doesn't that sound exactly what happened in Minnesota?
22:33And they're cutting it.
22:35It's outrageous.
22:36It's outrageous.
22:37But that's what they do.
22:38The last top officials at this program that aims to spot the so-called lone actor, violent domestic extremists, were reassigned.
22:51Reassigned.
22:52In the four months that Trump has took office, his administration has shrunk the Department of Homeland Security Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, CP3, from dozens of analysts to fewer than ten people.
23:08So here, with violence increasing, they are shrinking the number of law enforcement people aimed at trying to prevent that violence from ever occurring.
23:17Right now, we need to give our law enforcement more, not less.
23:22It's just totally hypocritical of this administration.
23:27The dangerous environment isn't spontaneous, however.
23:32It's being stoked, often deliberately, by reckless rhetoric coming from some of the most powerful voices in the country.
23:40When political opponents are treated like enemies, when leaders encourage the kind of protest that can lead to violence, it increases that violence.
23:53So it's the responsibility of all leaders, especially President Trump, to not just unequivocally condemn hatred, but to stop the violent and regressive language against political opponents.
24:05I'll tell you the first way he could start.
24:08He should demand that Mike Lee take down his disgusting tweet on X about the Minnesota shootings.
24:16I asked him to do it yesterday.
24:17Well, he wouldn't listen to me, but he'll listen to President Trump.
24:22We have to do more in every quarter, and we will.
24:28Any other?
24:29Yeah.
24:30Okay.
24:31And I want to thank our great volunteers.
24:34We believe in you.
24:35And as Thomas, rather Abe Lincoln said, public sentiment is everything.
24:42Public sentiment will help us win this battle.
24:45So thank you all very, very much.
24:47Thank you so much, Leader Shimmer.