Following Dobbs Decision, Frosh Joins Group Of Prosecutors Reaffirming Support For Abortion Rights
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing some states to ban abortion, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh joined a coalition of prosecutors reaffirming their support for the procedure.
Frosh and 21 other attorneys general -- almost all Democrats in jurisdictions with a Democrat executive -- declared: "Abortion care is healthcare. Period."
Seventeen of the signatories --including Frosh -- represent jurisdictions where local laws protect abortion access.
"We refuse to go back to the days of politicians trying to tell people what to do with their bodies. When it comes to abortion care, it's your body and your right to choose," the prosecutors said. "Nobody else gets to make those decisions."
Last September, Frosh was one of 24 prosecutors to file an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court justices to uphold the precedent set by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Case when considering a challenge to Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
Ultimately, the justices ruled in the Dobbs case last Friday that there is no constitutional right to an abortion.
After the ruling was released, Frosh, who was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates in the 1990s when the state passed a law protecting abortion rights, said the ruling "rips away the fundamental right of women to control their own bodies," including survivors of abuse, rape and incest.
"Its harms will have disproportionate impact on women of color and those of low income, many of whom already lack meaningful access to affordable health care of any kind," he said. "And even more broadly, this decision overturning 50 years of precedent also threatens the rights of all Americans to make private decisions about their lives without government interference."
Attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington released the joint statement.
They said they would use "all legal tools at our disposal" to fight for abortion protections and defend local laws safeguarding the procedure.
"We will support our partners and service providers," the prosecutors said. "Together, we will persist."
