Caribbean American congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke welcomes passage of Women’s Health Protection Act

Caribbean American Congresswoman, Yvette D. Clarke, has welcomed the passage of the Women’s Health Protection Act and the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act in the US House of Representatives.

Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York, joined other legislators over the weekend in hailing the passage of the measures in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s ruling that overturns the constitutional right to abortion and denies millions of women their right to choose.

“Only weeks ago, six far-right Supreme Court justices ruled in defiance of a half-century of legal precedent and against common sense and morality by overturning Roe v. Wade, consequently stripping the right to abortion from millions of American women and girls and denying them autonomy over their own bodies,” said the legislators in a joint statement.

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“This heartless, feckless decision comes on the heels of a decades-long war waged by the anti-choice party to undermine Americans and deny them their constitutional rights.

“Make no mistake, this ruling represents nothing more than disdain of women’s rights and progress, and a shameful smear by vicious extremists. Though we are furious, above all else, we are concerned for the countless women who will suffer because of this ruling, especially the millions living in the 13 states that have already outlawed abortion, many of whom are Black and brown women, low-income women, and women from rural communities long burdened by the traumatic impacts of systemic inequality and discrimination.”

The legislators said, “the freedom to choose our own fate is, and always will be, the foundation upon which any and every other freedom is derived,” adding that House Democrats last Friday “took necessary, historic steps towards permanently protecting the right of women and pregnant people to an abortion”.

They said the Women’s Health Protection Act and the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act “represent an opportunity for the Senate to codify the right to choose into the legal fabric of our country.

“And they must. Now, more than ever, it is vital they take decisive and immediate action to pass this legislation, because women and girls will always fight for control over their own bodies and their own futures, no matter what oppressive laws restrict them or personal harm they face.”

CMC/