Washington (May 11, 2022) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Senate sponsor of the Judiciary Act of 2021, released the following statement after the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the Women’s Health Protection Act in order to begin debate.

“Today, the Senate failed to protect the rights of millions of Americans and respect the will of two-thirds of our constituents across the country who believe Roe v. Wade should remain the law of the land, because a radical Republican minority once again succeeded in wedging their extremist views into our broken political machinery. As the Supreme Court stands poised to overturn Roe and cast aside decades of precedent, the Women’s Health Protection Act is all that’s standing between the America we’ve known for decades – in which safe and legal abortions are a right – and one that plunges millions of people back in time into despair, pain, poverty, and forced parenthood.

“We have come to this crossroads because our system is fundamentally broken. Our anti-majoritarian and anti-democratic national electoral system allowed two Presidents, each of whom lost the popular vote, to nominate five of our nine sitting U.S. Supreme Court justices. Corrupted congressional procedure allowed those justices to be confirmed by Senators representing a minority of our nation’s population. And now, the arcane filibuster has prevented the majority of Senators who stand in favor of upholding basic rights to privacy, self-determination, and abortion care from acting on the will of the American people.  

“There is no other recourse. We must abolish the filibuster in order to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, and we must expand the Supreme Court in order to reclaim the stolen seats, restore balance, and begin to repair the faith of the American people in the Court. Expanding the Court is constitutional. Congress has done it before, and Congress must do it again.”

###