(CNN) — Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar on Sunday criticized the US Supreme Court’s decision to allow a restrictive abortion law in Texas to stand as “blatantly against” the landmark decision it made nearly 50 years ago establishing women’s constitutional right to end a pregnancy.
“This decision that they made with the state of Texas is unbelievable,” Klobuchar told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.” “Here you have them this year, this week, basically telling women in Texas that 85% of them seeking abortion services cannot exercise their constitutional rights. … And basically greenlighted a law that is blatantly against Roe v. Wade.”
In a midnight order last week, the high court denied a request from Texas abortion providers to stop the state law that bans abortions after six weeks despite the fact that it violates Roe v. Wade, a 1973 opinion legalizing abortion nationwide prior to viability. The Texas law, which is one of the strictest in the country, has drawn outrage from Democrats and sparked concerns that the Supreme court could overturn or undercut the longstanding decision.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week the chamber would take legislative action when the House returns from recess and “bring up Congresswoman Judy Chu’s Women’s Health Protection Act to enshrine into law reproductive health care for all women across America.” But even if a bill on the issue were to pass in House it is likely to face hurdles in the Senate where Democrats hold a narrow majority and 60 votes are required to break the filibuster. There is also no indication 10 Republican senators would side with them on the issue.
Klobuchar called for immediate action from Democrats on the high court’s latest decision and said the filibuster should be abolished in order to codify abortion rights protections.
“I just think to pretend that this isn’t happening right now is the biggest mistake. This is an assault on women’s health,” she also told Bash. “Now and over the next years, we just will get nowhere if we keep this filibuster in place.”
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican, said Sunday that backlash over the Supreme Court’s decision regarding the Texas law is being used for political theater by Democrats to “distract” from the other issues facing the party.
“People are using it to gin up their base to distract from disastrous policies in Afghanistan, maybe for fundraising appeals,” Cassidy said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “If it is as terrible as people say it is, it’ll be destroyed by the Supreme Court, but to act like this is an assault upon Roe v. Wade is again something that the President’s doing I think to distract from his other issues.”
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