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\n

In April, Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer called a press conference<\/a> in front of a Planned Parenthood office in northern New Jersey to announce new legislation designed to protect women.<\/p>\n

Gottheimer, who was widely known to be planning a run for governor, said the bill was in response to a push by anti-abortion groups to use the 151-year-old Comstock Act to ban the mailing of mifepristone \u2014 a drug used to induce abortions and treat miscarriages.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be clear: without access to safe and legal reproductive health care, women will die,\u201d Gottheimer said at the time.<\/p>\n

But eight months later, the congressmember, who formally launched his gubernatorial campaign<\/a> last month, has still not introduced the legislation, the Protecting Personal, Private Medical Decisions Act. And the draft that his office provided to Blue Light News is a non-binding resolution \u2014 an expression of sentiment that has no force of law.<\/p>\n

Gottheimer\u2019s office told Blue Light News that the delay is due to the complexity of the court fights around abortion access.<\/p>\n

\u201cJosh has been working closely with legislative counsel on technical aspects of this legislation, and plans to introduce it when it\u2019s fully ready,\u201d Gottheimer Communications Director Zachary Florman said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The fact that Gottheimer has yet to introduce the bill after publicly saying he has comes amid an intensifying gubernatorial race<\/a> with six declared Democrats. He\u2019s been a leader of moderates in Washington and, while it will be an advantage in a general election for governor, he\u2019s coming up against more liberal Democrats and will need to appeal to a more progressive voting bloc.<\/p>\n

It also comes as Gottheimer grapples with the fallout of a viral scandal over his publishing a fake screenshot purporting to be his Spotify \u201cWrapped\u201d for 2024<\/a> \u2014 a summary of his most-listened to songs. His fabricated \u201cWrapped\u201d showed his top five songs as hits from Bruce Springsteen. But his admission that it was faked led to widespread mockery.<\/p>\n

Gottheimer \u2014 one of Congress\u2019 most active stock traders \u2014 also promised in 2022 to put his assets in a blind trust<\/a>. That has yet to happen, though Gottheimer\u2019s office said they long ago submitted blind trust proposals to the House Ethics Committee, which they said has repeatedly delayed approving it.<\/p>\n

Gottheimer touted his \u201cintroduction\u201d of the abortion-related bill several times in fundraising emails and referred to his \u201cnew legislation to stand up for a woman\u2019s right to choose \u2014 including protecting access\u201d while promoting his upcoming appearances on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first ran for Congress, I ran against an anti-choice extremist with a promise to always defend reproductive freedom,\u201d a Gottheimer gubernatorial campaign fundraising email from this month said. \u201cI\u2019ve introduced legislation like the Protecting Personal, Private Medical Decisions Act to condemn restrictions on reproductive health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a September voter guide on NJ Spotlight News, Gottheimer wrote: \u201cI have introduced two pieces of legislation, the \u2018Freedom to Decide Act\u2019 and the \u2018Protecting Personal, Private Medical Decisions Act,\u2019 both of which protect access to Mifepristone and support telemedicine across state lines, so doctors can prescribe it wherever women are in need of care.\u201d<\/p>\n

The April 9 press conference in Hackensack attracted attention across the region, earning him coverage on most New York City television news stations. That helped him burnish his pro-abortion rights bona fides ahead of his expected run in the Democratic primary for governor.<\/p>\n

\u201cJosh has also helped introduce other legislation protecting Mifepristone, including the Freedom to Decide Act,\u201d Florman said. \u201cBecause of what\u2019s on the line for women\u2019s health care, and the ongoing court battles, we want to make sure we get all choice-related legislation exactly right. We can never do enough to protect reproductive freedom, and Josh has a long record of standing with pro-choice groups to take on the radical right in defense of reproductive freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cFreedom to Decide Act\u201d \u2014 a concurrent resolution that would also be non-binding \u2014 was introduced by Gottheimer<\/a> along with two other members on April 13.<\/p>\n

Gottheimer does have a long record on other abortion issues, including a 2023 campaign<\/a> to shut down anti-abortion \u201ccrisis pregnancy centers\u201d that he alleges pose as legitimate health care centers. And he has co-sponsored dozens of bills and resolutions aimed at protecting or expanding access to abortion and reproductive care since taking office.<\/p>\n

The push to protect mifepristone likely lost some urgency following the Supreme Court\u2019s June decision<\/a> to throw out a lawsuit seeking to roll back access to the drug, though the decision was procedural and did not address the merits of the case. Some pro-abortion rights advocates have expressed concerns<\/a> that attempting to repeal parts of the Comstock Act could raise its profile and undermine the Biden administration\u2019s legal argument that it\u2019s unenforceable.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson Planned Parenthood New Jersey did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In April, Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer called a press conference in front of a Planned Parenthood office in northern New Jersey to announce new legislation designed to protect women. Gottheimer, who was widely known to be planning a run for governor, said the bill was in response to a push by anti-abortion groups to use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}