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The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization has triggered a slew of abortion bans, with devastating consequences for women and their families. The lawsuit filed in Texas by five women and two doctors documents the danger and suffering the states abortion ban has inflicted on women, the dire consequences for women who need appropriate care for miscarriages, and the impact on the medical profession.

A new report from the National Center for Health Statistics documents that even before Dobbs, the United States already-high maternal death rate was rising (32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021 compared with 23.8 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019), especially for Black women (2.6 times that of White women). After Dobbs, that figure can be expected to soar.

Where are the Senate hearings on this health crisis? Senators should bring in a variety of health-care specialists, hospital officials, medical ethicists, women, families of female victims, sociologists and statisticians (to highlight the economic, emotional and family impact when women are forced to give birth against their will), and legal scholars (to, among other things, explain the inherent vagueness and unworkability of state statutes). Senate Republicans who have cheered these bans should see evidence of the harm they support.

Hearings would serve an array of critical legislative purposes: to secure abortion access (despite the Houses forced-birth fanaticism), protect womens right to travel to secure critical care, enact appropriate policy for military and federal civilian personnel, or appropriate funding for further study.

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Opinion | Democrats are lagging on oversight - The Washington Post