Ensuring Women’s Right to Reproductive Freedom Act
Summary
What This Bill Does
The Ensuring Women's Right to Reproductive Freedom Act creates a federal protection for interstate abortion access. A person acting under color of state law may not prevent, restrict, impede, or retaliate against a provider's ability to furnish lawful abortion services to an out-of-state patient, another person's assistance to that provider, a person's travel across state lines for lawful abortion care, another person's assistance with that travel, or interstate movement of FDA-approved or licensed abortion medication. The Attorney General may sue for declaratory and injunctive relief. A harmed person may also sue for declaratory and injunctive relief, compensatory damages for economic loss and emotional pain and suffering, and reasonable attorney's fees and costs.
Who Benefits and How
Patients traveling for abortion care benefit because state-law actors may not block interstate travel to obtain lawful services. Abortion providers in access states benefit because they can serve out-of-state patients without state-law retaliation from another jurisdiction. People assisting abortion travel benefit from protection when they help someone cross state lines for lawful care. Medication abortion patients benefit because the bill protects interstate movement of FDA-approved or licensed pregnancy-termination drugs.
Who Bears the Burden and How
State officials enforcing abortion restrictions lose authority to impede lawful out-of-state abortion services, travel, assistance, or medication movement. Private actors empowered by state law face federal suits if they restrict or retaliate against protected interstate abortion activity. The Attorney General must enforce the prohibition when federal civil action is warranted. State-law defendants may owe damages, attorney's fees, and costs to harmed plaintiffs.
Key Provisions
- Prohibits state-law interference with lawful abortion services for out-of-state patients.
- Protects interstate travel and assistance for lawful abortion care.
- Protects interstate movement of FDA-approved or licensed abortion medication.
- Provides Attorney General enforcement and private civil actions for injunctions, damages, fees, and costs.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Prohibits state-law actors from blocking lawful interstate abortion services, assistance, travel, or FDA-approved abortion-medication movement, and authorizes Attorney General and private civil actions for injunctions, damages, fees, and costs.
Key Policy Areas
Reproductive Rights, Interstate Commerce, Civil Rights
Primary Purpose
Prohibits state-law actors from blocking lawful interstate abortion services, assistance, travel, or FDA-approved abortion-medication movement, and authorizes Attorney General and private civil actions for injunctions, damages, fees, and costs.
Policy Domains
Resolution provisions
Identified Gains
- Patients traveling for abortion care
- Abortion providers in access states
- People assisting abortion travel
- Medication abortion patients
Identified Costs
- State officials enforcing abortion restrictions
- Private state-law enforcers
- Attorney General
- State-law defendants
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeMrs. Fletcher (for herself, Mr. Raskin, Ms. Strickland, Mr. Amo, …
Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Introduced in House
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Abortion providers in access states, Medication abortion patients, Patients traveling for abortion care
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology