WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, issued this statement following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling:

“Today’s catastrophic ruling is the culmination of a decades-long effort by Republican extremists to install anti-choice justices on a High Court that routinely overrules Congress and the public’s will with impunity. Enabled by Senate Republicans, this shamefully partisan Supreme Court has decided against the more than 70% of Americans who want Roe v. Wade upheld. 

“Government control of reproduction is downright totalitarian. It is never in the best interest of society for politicians to decide when a person must give birth. Today’s ruling is rooted in ideological zealotry, not the common good. As a direct result of this decision, women will now be jailed for seeking abortion care while others will die because of pregnancy complications and unsafe self-abortion treatments. 

“Adding insult to injury, Justice Alito and his colleagues in the majority have demonstrated a crushing ignorance about the historical rights of women under our Constitution – women were unenfranchised and regarded as property when our nation was founded. We should not strive to return to that dark era. Six radical justices, appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote, have destroyed nearly 50 years of established legal precedent upon which tens of millions of people in this country have relied. In Roe’s place, the justices’ personal beliefs will impose unimaginable suffering for women and families across the country and worsen America’s already abysmal generational poverty crisis.”

In September 2021, Pingree and the U.S. House voted to pass the Women's Health Protection Act (WHPA), which would protect abortion access nationwide and finally codify protections established by the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey decisions. Due to the outdated filibuster, the U.S. Senate has been unable to pass the WHPA. Pingree recently joined more than 100 of her Democratic colleagues in the House in urging the Senate to end the filibuster to pass the WHPA and protect abortion rights. 

Click here to download a video message from Pingree on the Roe decision.