Lawler's record on reproductive rights
In one of his first votes (January 2023), Lawler voted for rules for the House of Representatives that forced consideration of a bill to prohibit federal funding of abortion. Proof of of Lawler's vote. At the time, Republicans (including Lawler) also prevented a vote on the Women's Health Protection Act which creates federal rights for patients and providers to protect abortion access
The National Defense Authorization Act narrowly passed the House by a 219-210 vote in July 2023. Lawler voted for the bill with several amendments (e.g. H.R. 2670, Amdt. 222) his party’s right wing forced Speaker McCarthy to include.
Among these are provisions that would direct the Pentagon to reject President Biden’s climate change executive orders;
disallow travel allowance for abortion care;
dismantle the Defense Department’s inclusion, diversity and equity training;
and block military schools from acknowledging racism in the history of the United States.
So, Lawler voted to prevent women in the armed services from being able to travel to receive reproductive healthcare that's unavailable in the state in which they are stationed. Duplicitous Lawler tells constituents about the bill’s proposed five percent raise for military personnel, but makes no mention of these harmful amendments. This vote broke a promise he made while campaigning that he would not support any abortion restrictions or bans enacted at the federal level.
Donald Trump brags about overturning Roe, and Mike Lawler supports Trump and his let-the-states-decide position on women’s reproductive health. We now see what "let the states decide means" – women in red states are suffering and dying from easily treatable conditions such as miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and non-viable pregnancies.
Lawler lied about his and his party’s positions on reproductive healthcare at an in-district event when he denied that there were states that lacked abortion exceptions for rape and incest (which we know do not work and are meaningless), asking attendees of the event to “show [him] the law.”
Lawler is a strong supporter of Speaker Mike Johnson, whose extremist anti-abortion positions include co-sponsoring a national abortion ban with no exceptions, even to save the life of the mother, and which would make birth control illegal