Sec. 2. Purpose
430 words·~2 min read·
/bill/119/s/2150/is/section-2A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
The purposes of this Act are as follows: To permit people to seek and obtain abortion services, and to permit health care providers to provide abortion services, without harmful or unwarranted limitations or requirements that single out the provision of abortion services for restrictions that are more burdensome than those restrictions imposed on medically comparable procedures, do not, on the basis of the weight of established clinical practice guidelines consistent with medical evidence, significantly advance reproductive health or the safety of abortion services, or make abortion services more difficult to access.
To promote access to abortion services and thereby protect women’s ability to participate equally in the economic and social life of the United States. To protect people’s ability to make decisions about their bodies, medical care, family, and life’s course. To eliminate unwarranted burdens on commerce and the right to travel. Abortion bans and restrictions invariably affect commerce over which the United States has jurisdiction. Health care providers engage in economic and commercial activity when they provide abortion services.
Moreover, there is an interstate market for abortion services and, in order to provide such services, health care providers engage in interstate commerce to purchase medicine, medical equipment, and other necessary goods and services; to obtain and provide training; and to employ and obtain commercial services from health care personnel, many of whom themselves engage in interstate commerce, including by traveling across State lines. Individuals engage in the interstate market by purchasing abortion services, including the purchase, use, and consumption of medicine, medical equipment, and other necessary goods and services transited in the stream of interstate commerce, the receipt of telemedicine services, and traveling across State lines to purchase and receive abortion services or assist others in purchasing or receiving such services.
The increase in abortion prohibitions and restrictions in a subset of States since 2022 cause women to travel to other States for abortion care, which, in turn, affects the health care systems of those States that provide the treatment and has exponentially increased the burden on interstate commerce and the instrumentalities of interstate commerce. Congress has the authority to enact this Act to protect access to abortion services pursuant to— its powers under the commerce clause of section 8 of Article I of the Constitution of the United States; its powers under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to enforce the provisions of section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment; and its powers under the necessary and proper clause of section 8 of Article I of the Constitution of the United States.