S. 2377

119th CONGRESS 1st Session

To ensure affordable abortion coverage and care for every person, and for other purposes.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES · July 22, 2025 · Sponsor: Ms. Duckworth · Committee: Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

Table of contents

• S. 2377
  • SEC. 1. Short title
  • SEC. 2. Findings
  • SEC. 3. Definitions
  • SEC. 4. Abortion coverage and care regardless of income or source of insurance
  • SEC. 5. Repeal of section 1303
  • SEC. 6. Sense of Congress
  • SEC. 7. Rule of construction
  • SEC. 8. Relationship to Federal law
  • SEC. 9. Severability

SEC. 1. Short title

• This Act may be cited as the or the .

SEC. 2. Findings

• Congress makes the following findings:
  • All people should have access to abortion services regardless of actual or perceived race, color, ethnicity, language, ancestry, citizenship, immigration status, sex (including a sex stereotype; pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition; sexual orientation or gender identity; and sex characteristics), age, disability, or sex work status or behavior.
  • A person’s income level, wealth, or type of insurance should not prevent them from having access to a full range of pregnancy-related health care, including abortion services.
  • No person seeking abortion care should be barred from receiving the procedure based on the ability or inability to afford the health care service.
  • Since the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (597 U.S. 215 (2022)) held that there is no constitutional right to abortion, 19 States have outright banned the procedure or imposed a ban at an arbitrary point in pregnancy. More than 25,000,000 women aged 15 to 44 live in States where there are more restrictions imposed than prior to the Dobbs decision. This is nearly 1 in 5 women.
  • Since 1976, the Federal Government has banned the use of Federal funds to pay for abortion services and allows for exceptions only in very narrow circumstances. This ban affects people of reproductive age in the United States who are insured through the Medicaid program, as well as individuals who receive insurance or care through other federally funded health programs and plans.
  • Women make up the majority of Medicaid enrollees (54 percent), and nearly 2 out of 3 women enrolled in the program are of reproductive age. Due to systematic barriers and discrimination, a disproportionately higher number of women of color and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or Queer (LGBTQ) individuals are enrolled in the program.
  • More than 40 percent of youth and children under age 19 and 12 percent of young people aged 19 to 25 get their health insurance through government programs.
  • Women of color are more likely to be insured by the Medicaid program. As of 2020, 25 percent of all Black women aged 19 to 64, or 33,000,000 Black women, and 22 percent of all Hispanic women are enrolled in Medicaid. Nearly 15 percent of Asian American and Pacific Islander women are enrolled in the Medicaid program as of 2019.
  • Medicaid also provides coverage to more than 1 in 4 (25 percent) non-elderly American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) women.
  • The Indian Health Service (IHS) is the federally funded health program for American Indians and Alaska Natives. The IHS serves a population of approximately 2,560,000 and as a federally funded system, since 1988, it has been barred from providing abortion services except for very limited cases. American Indians and Alaska Natives often face higher levels of poverty and limited access to health care for a number of intersecting oppressions thus leaving them without recourse for the Federal ban on abortion services.
  • As of 2025, 30 States and the District of Columbia apply Hyde-like restrictions and restrict Medicaid from covering abortion procedures except in cases of rape, incest, or the pregnant person’s life is in danger despite allowance for a State’s unmatched funds to provide coverage for abortion. As of 2024, 35 percent, or 5,500,000 women aged 15 to 49 who are enrolled in Medicaid live in States where abortion is legal but not covered by the program except in Hyde-allowable circumstances.
  • Moreover, 25 States also prohibit coverage of abortion services in the marketplaces and 10 prohibit coverage in private health insurance plans under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (). Conversely, 8 States have no coverage limitations, and an additional 12 require coverage in Medicaid, private and marketplace plans. Public Law 111–148
  • A recent report details how restrictions on abortion services coverage interfere with a person’s individual decision making, with their health and well-being, with their economic security, with their vulnerability to intimate partner violence, and with their constitutionally protected right to a safe and normal health care service.
  • About 25 percent of women covered by Medicaid seeking abortion services must carry their pregnancies to term because they are unable to obtain funds for their care. Government-imposed barriers to abortion services restrict people’s decisions on if, when, and how to parent, and have long-lasting and life-altering harmful effects on the pregnant person, their families and their communities. Those who seek and are denied abortion services are more likely to remain in or fall into poverty than those who access the care they need.
  • Restrictions on abortion service coverage have a disproportionately harmful impact on women with low incomes, women of color, immigrant women, LGBTQ people, and young women. Additionally, numerous State-imposed barriers make it disparately difficult for low-income people, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ people, and young people to access the health care and resources necessary to prevent unintended pregnancy or to assure that they are able to carry healthy pregnancies to term. Furthermore, young people of reproductive age (ages 15 to 24) are more likely to have a lower income than those older than that, and this income gap is greater for young BIPOC. Without insurance coverage for abortion services, young people are at greater risk of not having the economic means to afford care outside of insurance. Young people face disproportionate access barriers to abortion, including parental involvement requirement (notification and consent) and cost, in addition to barriers to contraception and inadequate and incomplete sexual and sexuality education. These challenges, which are magnified for BIPOC and queer, trans, and nonbinary youth, can cause significant delays in access to needed care, and could ultimately harm the life of the young person seeking abortion services. These institutionalized barriers deny young people’s right to bodily autonomy and can force young people to encounter an abusive parent or guardian, ignores trusted relationships young people may have with adults other than a parent or legal guardian, and in the case of the judicial bypass process, may force young BIPOC to interact with a legal system that has historically targeted and caused harm to communities of color.
  • These and other government-created and government-institutionalized barriers—including the restriction on funding for abortion services in Federal programs—exacerbate and create poverty and racial inequality in income, wealth-generation, and access to services.
  • Access to health care, including abortion services, promotes the general welfare of people living in the United States. Singling out abortion services for funding restrictions in health care programs otherwise designed to promote the health and well-being of people in the United States has cost pregnant people their lives, their livelihoods, their ability to obtain or maintain economic security for themselves and their families, their ability to meet their family’s basic needs, their ability to continue their education without disruption, and their ability to break free of abusive relationships.
  • Like other health care and health insurance markets in the United States, abortion services and public insurance programs are commercial activities that affect interstate commerce. Providers and patients travel across State lines, and otherwise engage in interstate commerce, to provide and access abortion services. Material goods, services, and federally regulated medications used in abortion services circulate in interstate commerce.
  • Congress has the authority to enact this Act to ensure affordable coverage of abortion and other services pursuant to—
    • its powers under the necessary and proper clause of Section 8, Article I of the Constitution of the United States;
    • its powers under the commerce clause of Section 8, Article 1 of the Constitution of the United States;
    • its powers to tax and spend for the general welfare under Section 8, Article 1 of the Constitution of the United States; and
    • its powers to enforce section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
  • Congress has exercised these constitutional powers to create, expand, and insure health care access for people in the United States for decades. Pursuant to this constitutional authority, Congress has enacted, and subsequently reauthorized, numerous health care programs including title XVIII of the Social Security Act (Medicare, enacted in 1965); title XIX of the Social Security Act (Medicaid, enacted in 1965); and title XXI of the Social Security Act (Children’s Health Insurance Program, enacted in 1997).

SEC. 3. Definitions

• For purposes of this Act:
  • The term abortion services means an abortion and any services related to, and provided in conjunction with, an abortion, whether or not provided at the same time or on the same day as the abortion.
  • The term health program or plan means the following health programs or plans that pay the cost of, or provide, health care:

SEC. 4. Abortion coverage and care regardless of income or source of insurance

• (a) Ensuring Abortion Coverage and Care Through the Federal Government in its Role as an Insurer and Employer
  • Each person insured by, enrolled in, or otherwise receiving medical care from health programs or plans described in section 3(2) shall receive coverage of abortion services. Health programs or plans described in section 3(2) shall provide coverage of abortion services.
• (b) Ensuring Abortion Coverage and Care Through the Federal Government in its Role as a Health Care Provider
  • In its role as a provider of health services, including under health programs described in section 3(2) and health services covered by health plans described in section 3(2), the Federal Government shall ensure access to abortion services for individuals who are eligible to receive medical care in its own facilities or in facilities with which it contracts to provide medical care.
• (c) Prohibiting Restrictions On Private Insurance Coverage Of Abortion Services
  • The Federal Government shall not prohibit, restrict, or otherwise inhibit insurance coverage of abortion services by State or local government or by private health plans.

SEC. 5. Repeal of section 1303

• (a) In general
  • Section 1303 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act () is repealed. 42 U.S.C. 18023
• (b) Conforming amendments
  • (1) Basic health plans
    • Section 1331(d) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act () is amended by striking paragraph (4). 42 U.S.C. 18051(d)
  • (2) Multi-State plans
    • Section 1334(a) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act () is amended— Public Law 111–148
      • by striking paragraph (6); and
      • by redesignating paragraph (7) as paragraph (6).

SEC. 6. Sense of Congress

• It is the sense of Congress that—
  • the Federal Government, acting in its capacity as an insurer, employer, or health care provider, should serve as a model for the Nation to ensure coverage of abortion services; and
  • restrictions on coverage of abortion services in the private insurance market must end.

SEC. 7. Rule of construction

• Nothing in this Act shall be construed to have any effect on any Federal, State, or local law that includes more protections for abortion coverage or abortion services than those set forth in this Act.

SEC. 8. Relationship to Federal law

• This Act supersedes and applies to all Federal law, and the implementation of that law, whether statutory or otherwise, and whether adopted before or after the date of enactment of this Act and is not subject to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (). 42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq.

SEC. 9. Severability

• If any portion of this Act or the application thereof to any person, entity, government, or circumstances is held invalid, such invalidity shall not affect the portions or applications of this Act which can be given effect without the invalid portion or application.