Gillibrand: ‘President Trump has started a war on American women’

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a 2020 presidential hopeful, said Sunday that President Trump is waging a war against women in America.

“This is nothing short of an all-out assault on women’s reproductive freedom, an effort to take away our basic human rights and civil rights” Gillibrand said on CBS’s “Face The Nation” about the laws being pushed through several state legislatures limiting access to abortion. 

“President Trump has started a war on America’s women. And if it’s a fight he wants to have, it’s a fight he’s going to have and he’s going to lose.”

.@SenGillibrand on anti-abortion legislation: “This is nothing short of an all out assault on women’s reproductive freedom… @realDonaldTrump has started a war on America’s women. And if it’s a fight he wants to have, it’s a fight he’s going to have and he’s going to lose.” pic.twitter.com/7stkDTKvUt

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) May 19, 2019

Georgia’s Republican legislature passed a law earlier this month that bars doctors in the state from performing an abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detectable, typically around six weeks into a pregnancy. Most women do not know they are pregnant at that point.

Last week, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signed into law the most restrictive abortion policy in the nation. Abortion in that state would only be legal in the event that it’s necessary to save a woman’s life. 

Gillibrand, who has put women’s rights at the center of her 2020 presidential campaign, has been an outspoken critic of both laws.

Last week, she visited Georgia to meet with abortion-providers and women rights activists.

The laws are expected to be challenged, setting up a potential battle over Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that recognized a woman’s right to an abortion.

Gillibrand has promised to codify Roe v. Wade if elected as president.