Hillary Clinton Campaign Press Release - Today Could Be Roe V. Wade's Last Anniversary

The right to safe and legal abortion is on the line—a Republican president would make sure of it.

When the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973, it recognized that the U.S. Constitution protects a woman's right to safe and legal abortion. It's a decision that has withstood 43 years of politically motivated attacks in the courts, in Congress, by state legislatures, and at the hands of violent extremists.

Thanks to Roe, more than four decades of women have had the right to make the most fundamental decisions about their lives, families, and futures. This is about women's health and women's rights—and the fight for reproductive rights is also a fight for economic opportunity.

Today, on the 43rd anniversary of the Court's decision, the future of reproductive rights in America is more vulnerable than ever before. And it's not an exaggeration to say that if we elect a Republican president to the White House, this could be one of the the last Roe v. Wade anniversaries we mark.

A Republican president would stack the Court with anti-choice justices

Over the past five years, states have enacted 288 abortion restrictions (and counting). That's more than the previous 15 years combined.

These restrictions—which keep abortion access out of reach for many women and even shutter clinics altogether—undermine women's fundamental rights and health.

Let's be very clear about one thing: The onslaught of attacks on these rights is not a coincidence; it's part of a deliberate strategy to chip away at the right to abortion altogether, until the Supreme Court has the chance to eviscerate the decision.

That may come sooner than you think: An abortion case the Court will hear later this year from Texas, Whole Women's Health v. Cole, is the biggest challenge to Roe we've seen in a generation—one that would be devastating to women in Texas and could significantly affect reproductive rights across the country.

This is what's at stake in the 2016 election. When the next president takes the oath of office next January, three of our current Supreme Court justices will be 80 or older—already older than the average justice retirement age. That means our next president could have the power to transform the Court, our laws, and our rights for generations to come.

Just imagine the damage a Republican president could do. Marco Rubio has said he will appoint justices that will overturn Roe v. Wade. Ted Cruz has referred to today as "the dark anniversary of Roe v. Wade." Ben Carson said he would "love" to see the decision overturned. All three of them would support a ban on abortion—even in cases of rape or incest.

We need a president who will appoint justices who will protect Roe. We need someone in the White House who will fight for women, who will build on the progress we've made over the past four decades—and who will keep going. We need Hillary Clinton.

This fight is far from over

Our reproductive rights are by no means "established." We fight for them every day. Women's health clinics, doctors, and advocates have been the targets of arson, shootings, and blockades for decades. And just last year:

And we still have laws on the books like the Hyde Amendment, which makes it harder for low-income women—and low-income women of color in particular—to exercise their full reproductive rights. Hillary will fight to repeal it as president. We need a leader who understands that a fight for reproductive rights is also a fight for economic opportunity.

Hillary has been fighting back against these attacks her entire career. As first lady, she led the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, where she proclaimed that "women's rights are human rights." As senator from New York, she championed access to emergency contraception and introduced bills to strengthen a woman's right to make her own health care decisions. And as secretary of state, she made women's rights a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy.

On the 43rd anniversary of Roe, let's remember the fights we have waged and the hard work that lies ahead. Let's work to elect a leader that never takes the rights we have won for granted and has made protecting them a priority. Let's stand with Hillary. She stands with us—and she's been fighting alongside us on these issues for a long, long time.