OLYMPIA – Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, released the following statement Friday in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs vs. Women’s Health Organization:

“Forty-nine years after the U.S. Supreme Court found a right to abortion hidden in the shadows of the Constitution, the court has finally overturned its decision in Roe v. Wade. The new decision does not make abortion illegal, but rather returns the regulation of abortion to the states.

“The court said the states have a legitimate interest in the preservation of prenatal life and the protection of maternal health and safety. I’ve always believed that. This was the issue that motivated me to run for the Legislature, back in 1980.

“In the state of Washington, we have a lot of work to do to get some reasonable limits to the radical extremist pro-abortion policy that allows abortion at any time, for any reason. We now can take another look at some of the proposals that have been introduced in the past, such as parental notification, the elimination of sex-selection abortions, the elimination of abortions based on Down’s Syndrome, and a ban on late-term abortions. These are reasonable laws that would be supported by the vast majority of citizens in our state, and the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case at last allows the people to have a voice.”