Transcripts For CSPAN First 20240705 : vimarsana.com

How are you . I like that. Nice to see you. Thank you for being here. How are you doing . [laughter] please this mine . Do you want me to start . Thank you will for being here today, i really appreciate it. Thank you for having us. Nearly one year ago, the Dobbs Decision took away Constitutional Rights to make health care decisions. Today, 18 states have abortion bands in effect and the consequences go far beyond the right to choose. Women are being denied access to medication that treat arthritis and cancer, even when they are not pregnant. Survivors of rape and incest are being forced to travel across state lines for care. Doctors have stopped providing care that they know is best for their patients because they dont know which procedures are legal. Like those who are with us today, far, far too many women are experiencing devastating consequences to their health, fertility and lives. Turned away from emergency rooms. Delayed treatments. Barely surviving the resulting infections. The Dobbs Decision was devastating and joe is doing everything he can do to fight back area. The only thing we can do to ensure every woman has the fundamental freedoms she deserves is for congress to make the protections of roe v. Wade the law of the land once again. We have to make our voices heard. For the women whose lives are on the line and the fathers and brothers and husbands and sons who love them. We need men in this fight. Im sure you are doubly all saying the same thing. We are joined by four women were doing just that, speaking up about experiences and i know its not easy to relive what you have gone through, but stories like yours are how we should light on the cool consequences of those bands. I want to thank you all for your candor and courage, and now were going to have a conversation led by the direction of our gender policy council who has worked tirelessly on this issue. I know i can already feel the emotion. Thank you. Thank you dr. Biden and thank you to all of you for coming to join us today for this conversation. Elizabeth, can you the director of our agenda policy counsel who has worked tirelessly this issue. I can already feel the emotion. I just want to say thank you. Thank you, dr. Biden. Thank you to all of you for coming to join us today for this really important conversation. I will start with you. Can you start by sharing your experience with us . In may of last year, i was 19 days pregnant. This was my first pregnant. We had opted to skip genetic testing because i was born with erbs palsy which cause partial paralysis in my right arm. I knew i would want to continue the pregnancy and up to this point, everything looked great. But the day after celebrating our first mothers day, water broke. Once that happens, how baby can no longer develop or thrive. She said my body was now vulnerable to serious infection and that doing nothing would result in the loss of my uterus. Meeting my future fertility and my life. It was heartbreaking and terrifying all at once. I could either remain pregnant and give birth to my baby that would inevitably die or terminate the pregnancy and preserve my own health. We decided to have an abortion. The next day my dr. Tobin do to texas law, my request for an abortion had been denied. Consequently, i was given to options, i could get it stay in the hospital to wait for my baby died at which point i could get the abortion i needed to protect my health or i could go home and wait for either my daughters death or an infection to develop that might cause my own demise. We asked about going to another day but my dr. s concern for me said traveling was too dangerous. The darkest week of my life began as i left the hospital and amniotic fluid actively leaked down my legs. With every passing day i felt the states intentional cruelty. My baby would not survive. My life did not matter and there was nothing i could do about that. With every passing day i was reminded of my inadequacies of not being able to bring a baby to term. The anguish of losing my daughter is a given. Pregnancy loss happens but in those circumstances, should we as a society endorse the government to invade our privacy . Everyones reason for seeking out an abortion is presence of them. I see and feel that now more than ever. Denying access to abortion is denying fundamental health care and if we allow this to continue, women will die if they have not already. Thank you. Thank you so much. Can we turn to you next to share your experience in florida question mark last year, the state of floridas 15 week abortion ban very nearly killed me. We still dont know how much damage that experience has done to our dream of one day having a family. Like countless other couples we have tried so hard to have a child. Before starting rbf, we lost more than a dozen pregnancies. Only one of those making it past six weeks and that was an ectopic pregnancy. Similar experiences have helped ease some of my pain. Last december, her 18th pregnancy was going along so well that the weeds tipped off, peasant 12 and then 16. We allowed ourselves the luxury of hope and went crib shopping for the first time and nicknamed her our money. But if you days later, my water broke, gushing everywhere and my dear husband, derek rushed me to the er of the local hospital we had come to trust. The diagnosis was devastatingly final. My membranes had ruptured. A rare condition. Our daughter could not possibly survive without amniotic fluid and doctors said she would likely be stillborn in the next 12 to 24 hours. They explained the standard of medical care has always been a termination. Yes, and abortion. And until that happens, my life would be at risk from the potential of an infection or hemorrhaging. The standard of care was very different for me. Doctors set my only option was to wait and see. Because she was beyond 15 weeks and there was still a heartbeat, they could not touch me, treat me or admit me. They sent us home to deal with it. That is when i went to a really dark place. Convincing myself i am not going to survive this. I was not thinking straight and i was on the verge of suicidal. I kept a hair appointment believing that if i died within the next two days, my dear mom would not have to go to the trouble of getting my locks done before the funeral. And that is why my daughter was stillborn in the bathroom. Derek was waiting for me outside. I said call 911. Right away and then come inside. I was hemorrhaging so much blood that i passed out as the paramedics arrived. While on life support, an er doctor took derek aside and said the best way to preserve my life was to do an emergency hysterectomy. When i learned that derek implored the doctor to not compromise our dreams. Please save my wife and her uterus he told him. Doctors said i lost more than half the blood in my body and was so weak i needed six more days in the hospital. And two of to followup surgeries. All because politicians who are not doctors had interfered with fundamental and essential Health Care Policy decisions, very personal and private life decisions. We dont know if i can get pregnant now. The target of our breath is very well known. It is the people who have taken our human rights to health and liberty and personal autonomy. So it to fight back against these insidious laws in states across the country. This is my fight, this is our fight. Thank you. In august of 2022, my family and i had a very life altering experience. When i was 10 weeks pregnant, i received devastating news about our pregnancy. Our baby was diagnosed with a cranium. It is a rare and Fatal Mission in which the skull does not develop property. Properly. The doctor said my baby would die within minutes if not in birth and recommended we terminate the pregnancy to avoid physical and further emotional trauma. To make a painful story short, we were denied a termination because health care providers, people trained and trusted to do their jobs were afraid of prosecution and losing their license. At that very moment, i knew i was being forced to carry my baby, to bury my baby. While still grieving i had to navigate 1400 miles to a foreign place, leaving my children and my family behind just to access abortion care. Every day that passed pushed me further into pregnancy, depression and deeper pain but i was determined to reclaim my power. Health providers deserve the right to give us the health care we need and deserve. Physicians should be operating with the strength of their government behind them. Being worried about losing their job or being prosecuted or find does not put them there. For this reason and more i have become a fierce advocate, turning my pain into action and i will continue to speak about my experience and advocate for laws that actually support Womens Health and their ability to make their own decisions about their health care. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, nancy. Can we turn to you . It is much easier to be a doctor than it is to do this. Ive always wanted a big, messy happy family, my husband and i have two healthy and remotest children. Our longawaited third is due this fall, this august. I never imagined the demeaning obstacles we would have to fight to get here. In the journey to build our family, this has included three by nancy losses. One has ended in miscarriage and the other two although years apart ended in abortion after devastating fetal diagnoses. As a physician and odie balian, i know that everyones reason for needing an abortion is valid and personal. People dont realize that plan pregnancies can end in abortion. I know how essential and fundamental abortion care is. Abortions save lives. The first time i needed in abortion, i was able to receive it in my home state and i was able to talk openly with my doctor about my options. While it wasnt readily difficult decision, my husband and i did not need to leave the state for this essential medical care. Fast forward to last summer when everything changed. I was nervously break it again and routine ultrasound showed that my pregnancies brain and skull never developed. A condition known as a cranium. I remember looking at my sound screen and knowing immediately that i was going to need another abortion. But only this time i would have to flee my own state in order to receive one. Because of texass new laws, my husband and i instead of thinking about how to fit a toddler bed and a crib in our nursery, we worried about whether whether or not we should use our credit card or tell anyone we were going to the east coast. We were worried that our abilities to Practice Medicine would be compromised. It was completely humiliating. I felt visibly and emotionally broken. Especially, so soon after my miscarriage. Texas abortion laws were written by politicians, not doctors. And now physicians like me and patients like me cant even discuss the safest options for their bodies and future families without fear. For me, the risk physically and emotionally of carrying this pregnancy to term, something that had no chance of survival was something i could not fathom or handle. In the eyes of my state, it was my only option. Everyone needs to be able to make these decisions that are right for them and write for their families. After having an open and honest conversation with their physician. I am here as a person who also happens to be a doctor to tell you that the state of texas has complete this trip to me of my own reproductive rights but it has also disassembled the foundation of the doctorpatient relationship. Trust and open and honest communication. I never thought i would need an abortion for a planned pregnancy, let alone two of them but i did. Those were the right decisions for my family and me. The state of texas should not be making these decisions for me or for anybody else. Thank you. Thank you all for sharing your stories, for your courage and resilience and for speaking out about the decision. I know that is not easy and we really appreciate you being willing to come here today to talk it out with us. To state the obvious, you should never have had to go through the expenses and if the protections of roe v. Wade had been in place, you have the right to choose the care you needed. The stories we just heard and countless others we are hearing from women all across the country underscore but we already know. These abortion bands, the extreme laws stem between. Women and doctors interfere with access to care. I want to talk a little bit about what this administration has been doing and what we will continue to do. First, we have been laser focused, the president has been laser focused. It was in the First Executive order he signed within weeks of the decision coming down. The department of Human Services sent letters to doctors and providers to make clear that all patients including those experiencing pregnancy loss there is a federal law that requires it. More work needs to be done. That is something we will continue to work on for all the obvious reasons and we feel incredibly strongly about that. We have also taken steps to strengthen privacy protections for Reproductive Health care information so providers can give accurate and complete information to their patients. And another piece is we have worked to protect access to medication and abortion which is more than half of the abortion that happen across the country. We will continue these efforts but as the first lady said early on in this conversation, the only way to ensure every woman and every state has access to these is for congress to pass a federal law to restore the protections of roe v. Wade. We will continue to call on them to do that. After all, the majority of americans, the vast majority of americans support just that and the president has been white clear. The first person i heard say that just 45 minutes after the decision came down that the only way we would fully restore this right is to pass federal legislation