WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) released the following statement on the four-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, stripped access to abortion care for millions of Americans, and denied women the freedom to make their own healthcare decisions.
“Four years ago, Republicans’ hand-picked judges stripped women of their constitutional right to make decisions about their own reproductive health care. It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now,” said Heinrich. “I’ll keep fighting until every woman can make her own decisions about her own body.”
Heinrich remains unwavering in his commitment to protect women’s reproductive freedoms.
Last month, Heinrich reintroduced a resolution affirming that the abortion medication mifepristone is safe and effective, and underscoring that law and policy related to the medication must be equitable, transparent, and based on the best available peer-reviewed evidence-based science.
Heinrich also joined an amicus brief to the Supreme Court urging them to overturn a Fifth Circuit decision that would upend the FDA approval process and restrict access to life-saving mifepristone.
In March, Heinrich reintroduced a resolution recognizing abortion providers and staff.
Last August, Heinrich introduced the Women’s Health Protection Act, legislation to guarantee access to abortion everywhere across the country and restore the right to comprehensive reproductive health care for millions of Americans.
That same month, Heinrich introduced the Restoring Essential Healthcare Act, legislation to repeal Trump and Republicans’ Big, Bad Bill provision that bans Medicaid reimbursements for health services provided at Planned Parenthood clinics.
Heinrich also announced he cosponsored the Veteran Families Health Services Act, legislation to make it easier for veterans who struggle with infertility to build their families. Specifically, the bill will expand fertility treatments and family-building services covered under servicemembers’ and veterans’ health care to include — among other things — in vitro fertilization (IVF) and adoption assistance for servicemembers and veterans who are unable to conceive without assistance. The legislation also includes an option for individuals to freeze their eggs or sperm ahead of deployment to a combat zone.
In June 2025, Heinrich cosponsored the Protect IVF Act, legislation to establish a nationwide right to IVF. Specifically, the bill will create a statutory right for patients to access IVF services, a right for doctors to provide IVF treatment in accordance with medical standards as well as a right for insurance carriers to cover IVF without prohibition, limitation, interference or impediment. By establishing a statutory right, this would preempt any effort to limit such access and help ensure no hopeful parent — or their doctors — are punished for trying to start or grow a family.
In May 2025, Heinrich cosponsored the Stop Comstock Act, legislation to repeal the Comstock Act, an arcane 1873 law that anti-choice extremists have threatened to invoke as a backdoor means to dramatically limit abortion access nationwide without a single act of Congress.
In March 2025, Heinrich filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of protecting the right of millions of Americans to receive reproductive health care from the provider of their choosing.
In October 2024, Heinrich submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, two consolidated cases concerning the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) under consideration by the en banc Ninth Circuit. EMTALA is a federal law that requires hospitals that receive Medicare funding to provide necessary “stabilizing treatment” to patients experiencing medical emergencies, which includes abortion care.
In September 2024, Heinrich released a statement after Senate Republicans blocked the passage of the Right to IVF Act, legislation he introduced as an original cosponsor to establish a nationwide right to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and other assisted reproductive technology (ART). The legislation would also lower the costs of IVF treatment for millions of families, veterans, and service members.
In May 2024, Heinrich, as then-Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees funding for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), defended the safety of Mifepristone at a hearing he chaired, with former-FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf testifying.
In March 2024, Heinrich introduced the Abortion Care Capacity Enhancement and Support Services (ACCESS) Act, legislation to establish a federal grant program for health care organizations to expand their capacity to provide abortion services and additional reproductive care in New Mexico and other states where it remains legal. This has become necessary because pro-choice states like New Mexico are shouldering the influx of patients from Republican-led states where abortion is now restricted. This has led to providers in states like New Mexico becoming overwhelmed with demand for abortion care from both in- and out-of-state patients.
In February 2024, after the Alabama State Supreme Court issued a ruling that threatened access to IVF treatment, Heinrichcosponsored the Access to Family Building Act, legislation that would protect every American’s right to access IVF and other assisted reproductive technology services that millions need to have children.
Heinrich is also an original cosponsor of the Right to Contraception Act, legislation which would guarantee that people can obtain and health professionals can provide contraceptives – free from government interference. Senate Republicans blocked the passage of the Right to Contraception Act.
In January 2024, Heinrich attended a briefing on the state of abortion rights in America, the chaos and cruelty of the abortion bans that have been enacted in Republican-led states since Roe was overturned, and the need to pass legislation to restore the right to abortion nationwide.
In December 2023, Heinrich introduced a resolution in support of equitable, science-based policies governing access to medication abortion.
In May 2023, Heinrich cosponsored the Protecting Service Members and Military Families’ Access to Health Care Act, which would codify the Department of Defense’s (DOD) February 16, 2023, policy to ensure service members and their families can access reproductive health care, including abortion services, regardless of the state in which they are stationed.
As then-Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees the FDA, Heinrich has pushed back against Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk’s ruling that suspends the FDA’s more than 20-year-old approval of mifepristone. Heinrich joined an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the case of Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, in support of the Biden administration’s appeal of the ruling. In a statement in April 2023, Heinrich said that Judge Kacsmaryk, “undermined the FDA’s safety and efficacy determination of Mifepristone. And with it, he has undermined the FDA’s authority to determine the safety and efficacy of all medications – from insulin to cancer treatment.” That same month, Heinrich presided over a hearing on the President’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request for the FDA, where he expressed his strongly held view that the “decisions the FDA makes, whether approving a medical device or approving a new drug, must be guided by science and not by political pressure.”
In March 2023, Heinrich cosponsored the Women’s Health Protection Act to prohibit states from imposing restrictions that jeopardize access to abortion earlier in pregnancy, such as arbitrary waiting periods, medically unnecessary mandatory ultrasounds, or requirements to provide medically inaccurate information. Additionally, the bill would ensure that later in pregnancy, states cannot limit access to abortion if it would jeopardize the life or health of the mother. The bill would also protect the ability of individuals to travel out of state for an abortion, which has become increasingly common in recent years.
In September 2022, Heinrich urged the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to take immediate action to safeguard women’s privacy and their ability to safely and confidentially get the health care they need.
In September 2021, Heinrich joined a group of 48 Democrats in the U.S. Senate and 188 members in the U.S. House of Representatives that filed a bicameral amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold nearly 50 years of precedent in Roe v. Wade and protect the constitutional right to abortion care.
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