Congressmember arrested for taking part in a rally protesting SCOTUS ruling on abortion

JUDY CHU

California Congressmember Judy Chu, center, was arrested at an abortion rights rally last week.

The Asian American Congressmember who introduced a bill last year to ensure abortion rights becomes federal law was arrested at a  rally protesting the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. 

Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, was arrested June 30 along with 180 other demonstrators protesting the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, a 50-year law giving women the right to choose.

“The decision to march today was easy—I came out to march for the young rape survivor, the woman who cannot afford to travel to another state to access critical care, the mother with an ectopic pregnancy whose life is in danger. I came out to march for all of us”, Chu said in a tweet following her arrest.

Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, introduced the Women’s Health Protection Act last September after the Supreme Court allowed a new Texas law banning most abortions to remain in place.

The measure seeks to codify the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision into federal law "to protect a person’s ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy" and to protect health care providers' ability to continue administering abortion services, according to the bill’s text.

Although the House passed the bill, Republican senators were able to block its passage in the US Senate with a 46-48 vote, far from the 60 votes needed based on the filibuster rule.

Last week's rally near the Supreme Court building was in response to the 6-3 ruling by radical conservative justices to overturn the landmark 50-year old Roe v. Wade decision even though the law had been upheld by SCOTUS numerous times. Trump appointees, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barret, gave conservatives a super majority in the court even thuogh they testified under oath during their confirmation hearings that they would uphold precedent rulings.

Eighty-five percent of AAPI women support abortion access, according to a poll by the National Asian Pacific American Womens Forum.

““We are in this together and we will not back down or be silenced. I am ramping up my calls to abolish the Senate filibuster — and actively exploring every option to ensure we pass my bill, the Women’s Health Protection Act, which establishes a federal right to abortion care, and have it signed into law,” Chu said in her statement made after her arrest.

“Lives are at stake and this fight is far from over.” 

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