EMILYs List Statement on SCOTUS Abortion Decision

For Immediate Release 
January 13, 2021

EMILYs List Statement on SCOTUS Abortion Decision
This ruling is an obstacle to women's reproductive freedom and subjects patients to undue COVID-19 risk in a global pandemic.

WASHINGTON — In the court’s first ruling on an abortion case since Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the bench, the Supreme Court reinstated a requirement from the U.S. Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA) that women seeking mifepristone, or medication abortion, must travel to a health center in person to pick up the pill. The ruling makes no exception even when the patient has already been evaluated by a clinician using telehealth. Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILYs List, issued the following statement on the ruling:

“Plain and simple, this ruling lacks basic human decency. It underscores a reckless and dangerous decision by the Trump administration, with major health ramifications that disproportionately impact people of color and low-income individuals — the vast majority of whom are experiencing higher rates of severe COVID-19 infections,” said Schriock. “Endangering patients by requiring them to travel in-person to health centers in the height of a global pandemic exposes patients to undue COVID-19 risks. Reproductive freedom is a right for every person, including during a national health crisis, and I urge the Biden-Harris administration to reevaluate this decision when they take office on January 20th as they work to protect and safeguard the American people.”

This ruling comes after the passage of dangerous anti-choice legislation in states including Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. Despite the fact that the vast majority of Americans support Roe v. Wade, state legislatures across the country are engaged in shameful and blatant attempts to ignore the will of the people and overturn it. Legislatures in Kansas and South Carolina are not far behind, promising to pass more restrictions aimed at the criminalization of women’s reproductive freedom. 

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $700 million to elect pro-choice Democratic women candidates. With a grassroots community of over five million members, EMILY's List helps Democratic women win competitive campaigns – across the country and up and down the ballot – by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running nearly $50 million in independent expenditures in the last cycle alone, and turning out women voters and voters of color to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country's first woman as vice president, 157 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40 percent of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. After the 2016 election, more than 60,000 women reached out to EMILY's List about running for office laying the groundwork for the next decade of candidates for local, state, and national offices. In our effort to elect more women in offices across the country, we have created our Run to Win program, expanded our training program, including a Training Center online, and trained thousands of women.