Pro­posed leg­is­la­tion that would pro­tect health­care providers from being held crim­i­nal­ly liable for offer­ing repro­duc­tive care ser­vices by gov­ern­ments in states that have out­lawed abor­tion has the sup­port of more than three in five Wash­ing­ton vot­ers, with a major­i­ty (52%) strong­ly sup­port­ive, a poll con­duct­ed last week for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute has found.

62% of 782 like­ly Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers sur­veyed Octo­ber 19th-20th, 2022 for NPI by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling said they sup­port­ed Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray and U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kim Schri­er’s Let Doc­tors Pro­vide Repro­duc­tive Health Care Act (H.R. 8650 in the House and S.4723 in the Sen­ate).

Only 26% were opposed, while 12% said they were not sure.

“As the only pro-choice woman doc­tor in Con­gress, I will always defend wom­en’s access to a safe abor­tion,” Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Schri­er said in a state­ment to the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute. “Tar­get­ing doc­tors is anoth­er extreme tac­tic that Repub­li­can state leg­is­la­tures across the coun­try are using to restrict women from mak­ing their own health­care deci­sions. This impor­tant bill would pro­tect doc­tors’ abil­i­ty to per­form their duties as med­ical professionals.”

“It’s clear that Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers agree: Doc­tors shouldn’t be pun­ished for pro­vid­ing their patients with legal abor­tion care — full stop,” said Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray in a state­ment to the North­west Pro­gres­sive Institute.

“The strong pub­lic sup­port for our leg­is­la­tion across Wash­ing­ton state reaf­firms what we know to be true: that doc­tors must be able to pro­vide repro­duc­tive health care with­out fear, and that deci­sions about preg­nan­cy belong to a woman and her doc­tor, her fam­i­ly, and her faith — not to politicians.”

First intro­duced in the Sen­ate by Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray, Ben Ray Lujan, Alex Padil­la, and Jacky Rosen, the bill would, as sum­ma­rized by Schri­er’s office:

• Pro­tect health care providers in states where abor­tion is legal from laws that try to pre­vent them from pro­vid­ing repro­duc­tive health care ser­vices or make them liable for pro­vid­ing those ser­vices to patients from any oth­er state
• Pro­hib­it any fed­er­al funds from being used to pur­sue legal cas­es against indi­vid­u­als who access legal repro­duc­tive health care ser­vices or against health care providers in states where abor­tion is legal
• Cre­ate a new grant pro­gram at the Depart­ment of Jus­tice to fund legal assis­tance or legal edu­ca­tion for repro­duc­tive health care ser­vice providers
• Cre­ate a new grant pro­gram at the Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices to sup­port health care providers in obtain­ing phys­i­cal, cyber, or data pri­va­cy secu­ri­ty upgrades nec­es­sary to pro­tect their prac­tice and patients
• Pro­tect repro­duc­tive health care providers from being denied pro­fes­sion­al lia­bil­i­ty insur­ance cov­er­age because of legal ser­vices offered to patients

The Let Doc­tors Pro­vide Repro­duc­tive Health Care Act is endorsed by the Nation­al Women’s Law Cen­ter, Nation­al Fam­i­ly Plan­ning and Repro­duc­tive Health Asso­ci­a­tion, Planned Par­ent­hood Fed­er­a­tion of Amer­i­ca, Catholics for Choice, Nation­al Part­ner­ship for Women & Fam­i­lies, and Cen­ter for Repro­duc­tive Rights.

And now, thanks to our research, we know Wash­ing­ton vot­ers endorse it, too.

Here’s the text of the ques­tion we asked and the answers we received:

QUESTION: Leg­is­la­tion has been intro­duced in Con­gress called the Let Doc­tors Pro­vide Repro­duc­tive Health Care Act, which would pro­tect health­care providers in states where abor­tion remains legal from being held crim­i­nal­ly liable for offer­ing repro­duc­tive care ser­vices by gov­ern­ments in states that have out­lawed abor­tion. The bill would also fund legal assis­tance and edu­ca­tion for repro­duc­tive health­care ser­vice providers and pro­hib­it insur­ance com­pa­nies from deny­ing them lia­bil­i­ty cov­er­age because of the ser­vices they offer to patients. Do you strong­ly sup­port, some­what sup­port, some­what oppose, or strong­ly oppose the Let Doc­tors Pro­vide Repro­duc­tive Health Care Act?

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port: 62% 
  • Strong­ly: 52%
  • Some­what: 10%
• Oppose: 26%
  • Some­what: 7%
  • Strong­ly: 19%
• Not sure: 12%

Our sur­vey of 782 like­ly 2022 Wash­ing­ton State midterm vot­ers was in the field from Wednes­day, Octo­ber 19th through Thurs­day, Octo­ber 20th. The sur­vey was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.5% at the 95% con­fi­dence interval.

It uti­lizes a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy, with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines (50%) and text mes­sage answers from cell phone only respon­dents (50%).

More infor­ma­tion about the survey’s method­ol­o­gy is avail­able here.

In addi­tion to major­i­ty sup­port statewide, we also found major­i­ty sup­port at the con­gres­sion­al dis­trict lev­el, in Wash­ing­ton’s hot­ly con­test­ed 3rd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict (56% total) and the 8th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, where Schri­er is seek­ing reelec­tion (62% total, match­ing the statewide finding).

Every sin­gle region in the state is sup­port­ive. 77% of King Coun­ty backs the Let Doc­tors Pro­vide Repro­duc­tive Health Care Act, along with 54% of North Puget Sound, 66% of the South Sound, 55% of the Olympic Penin­su­la and South­west Wash­ing­ton, and even 52% of East­ern and Cen­tral Washington.

Mur­ray and Schri­er’s oppo­nents Tiffany Smi­ley and Matt Larkin are stri­dent­ly opposed to repro­duc­tive rights, as are near­ly all Repub­li­cans across the coun­try. Larkin has said explic­it­ly he sup­ports a nation­wide ban on abor­tion with no excep­tions. Smi­ley has backed away from that posi­tion in an attempt to win over vot­ers, but both Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can activists have expressed the view that Smi­ley would vote for a ban if Mitch McConnell need­ed her to.

Dur­ing a joint appear­ance in Issaquah, Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray and Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kim Schri­er dis­cussed pro­tect­ing repro­duc­tive rights in the cur­rent 117th Con­gress and upcom­ing 118th Con­gress (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

The Let Doc­tors Pro­vide Repro­duc­tive Health Care Act will only have a chance of becom­ing law in the next Con­gress if vot­ers elect Demo­c­ra­t­ic majorities.

As most Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate read­ers like­ly know, there aren’t enough Demo­c­ra­t­ic votes in the Sen­ate now to reform the fil­i­buster. That changes if Mur­ray, Cortez Mas­to, Has­san, Kel­ly, Warnock, and oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors win reelec­tion and add two new first ter­m­ers to their cau­cus, like John Fet­ter­man in Penn­syl­va­nia, Man­dela Barnes in Wis­con­sin, or Cheri Beasley in North Carolina.

With two addi­tion­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors, Sen­ate Democ­rats would be able to with­stand Joe Manchin and Krys­ten Sine­ma’s oppo­si­tion to fil­i­buster reform.

Mean­while, to main­tain a major­i­ty in the House, Democ­rats have to mount a strong defense by reelect­ing incum­bents like Kim Schri­er. Their chances of win­ning a major­i­ty will go up if they increase their com­mit­ment to going on offense with promis­ing can­di­dates like Marie Glue­senkamp Perez in WA-03, who would undoubt­ed­ly be a vote for the Let Doc­tors Pro­vide Repro­duc­tive Health Care Act.