EMILYs List Statement on the Passage of the Women’s Health Protection Act

For Immediate Release
July 15, 2022 

EMILYs List Statement on the Passage of  the Women’s Health Protection Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Women’s Health Protection Act. President of EMILYs List, Laphonza Butler, released the following statement on this important step in protecting abortion rights: 

“Today is a reminder of how important it is to elect pro-choice candidates. As more states pass abortion bans. After the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the constitutional right to an abortion, today’s passage of the Women’s Health Protection Act is a critical step in the right direction. This bill offers federal protection for abortion rights and the right to make our own health care and family planning decisions. Equal access to abortion, no matter where you live, is crucial to ensuring reproductive freedom, social and economic equality, and the right to determine your own future. At EMILYs List, we are proud to stand with Democratic pro-choice women who led this fight and look forward to electing more of those women across the country and up and down the ballot to help protect our rights.”

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $700 million to elect Democratic pro-choice 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, 159 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40% 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.