Presidential campaign, barack obama promised there would be a vote on the freedom of choice act. signing that bill, he said, would be the first thing i do as president. he was elected but that did not happen. as recently as 2020, almost every 2020 democratic primary candidate, said the same thing. codify roe v. wade into law if they became president. everyone promises they will do it. it somehow seems to never happen. on the congressional level, democratic congresswomen judy chu of california has taken this very seriously and has taken pen to paper. four years. in 2013 she introduced legislation to protect abortion rights. she did the same during her next term, 2015, then again here s after. multiple times. she s actually trying to do it.
You heard the democratic leader in the senate george mitchell say that is too close for comfort. it is time to take the whole issue of protecting abortion rights out of the hands of the supreme court. it is too dangerous there. he said in june, 1992 rather than leaving it up to the court congress should make an end run around the court. congress should just pass a federal law that would protect a woman s right to have an abortion in all 50 states. he promised he would bring the full united states senate to a vote on the freedom of choice act which would enshrine abortion rights into federal law. in the end he did not follow through on that promise. but the idea of doing that, the promise to do that, has stuck around in democratic politics ever since in a weird and kind of frustrating way. go back to the 2008 presidential campaign, barack obama then a candidate said if he were elected president he would make sure there was a vote on the freedom of choice act. he said signing that bill w
Issue of protecting abortion rights out of the hands of the supreme court. it is too dangerous there. so he said in june 1992 that rather than leaving it up to the court, congress should make an end run around the court. congress should just pass a federal law that would protect a woman s right to have an abortion in all 50 states. he promised he would bring the full united states senate to a vote on the freedom of choice act, which would enshrine abortion rights into federal law. in the end, he did not follow through on that promise, but the idea of doing that, the promise to do that, has stuck around in democratic politics ever since in weird and kind of frustrating way. go back to the 2008 presidential campaign. barack obama, then a candidate, said if he were elected president, he would make sure there was a vote on the freedom of choice act.
Row survived, but the ruling was close. one vote in the other direction and roe would have been overturned. you heard george mitchell say that that is too close for comfort. it s time to take the fate of roe, the whole issue of abortion rights out of the hands of the supreme court. it s too dangerous there. he said in june, 1992, that rather than leaving it up to the court, congress should macon and round around the court. congress should pass a law that would protect the women s rights in all 50 states to an abortion. he promised he would bring the senate to a vote on the freedom of choice act, which would enshrine and boorish and rights. he did not follow through with a promise in the end. but the idea of doing that, the promise, has stuck around in democratic politics ever since. in a weird and frustrating way. go back to the 2008
Rights, she has been covering the story. erin, your piece today reminded me of a piece of legislation democrats have proposed back in 2007 that i completely have forgotten about. this is the first time you have seen it national many people forget about it. this is the first time you are seeing national democrats on capitol hill really step out and push this. well, i think they did push the freedom of choice act a couple of years ago, but there clearly was not enough political will because it never went anywhere, even when democrats controlled both chambers. i mean, i do understand why this has not been a fight they want to pick. they are traumatized by the partial birth abortion ban that started in the late 90s and into 2000. they re struggling because of this. and the tremendous overreach, this happened in state legislatures, because of the comments made and the problems in passing the laws, pro choice