Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Thursday there is still a “long ways to go” to finding a bipartisan agreement on codifying abortion rights previously protected under Roe v. Wade. She added that she is “not in the camp that says it cannot be done.”
“Codification of Roe v. Wade is not going to happen unless there is a bipartisan approach to it. It is as simple as that,” the Alaskan senator told CBS News’ John Dickerson in an interview.
Murkowski said that, months ago, she met with Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona, and Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, to determine whether “there is a path forward.”
“We have a ways to go with it,” she said. “But again, if you don’t start out with something that is bipartisan in the first place, you are doomed to fail, particularly on matters as significant as we’re talking about with a woman’s right to choose and control her reproductive health care.”
“It is impossible to achieve if we say that there’s no way we can make it happen,” she added.
President Biden has vowed that Democrats would codify Roe v. Wade into law if they gain Senate seats and keep their majority in the House in the upcoming midterm elections. He has also called on the Senate to make an exception to its filibuster rules.
Murkowski, however, who supports the right to an abortion up to fetal viability, told Dickerson she is against eliminating the filibuster to do so.
“Keep in mind that it may be a quick way to gain a win, but when the tables turn, when majorities flip, that can be then used against the issue,” she said. “That’s not a recipe for success. I’m not suggesting that it’s easy. I can’t tell you that we’ve got those votes lined up. But I am convinced that people in this country, women in this country, are not willing to be pushed back 50 years when it comes to determining their reproductive health care rights, potentially their fair access to contraception.”
In her interview, Murkowski also condemned threats against lawmakers, saying they are discouraging “good people” from working in government.
“I know that it happens on both sides,” she said. “It is not acceptable. It is reprehensible that this should continue by anyone against any of us. And this is not just those of us in elected office. Look at what we’re seeing with it with the threats towards the judiciary, the Supreme Court, our cabinet members of both parties, whether in the Trump administration, or now with the Biden administration. It is not acceptable and we all need to speak out and condemn it.”
