Just over two weeks after the Supreme Court handed a historic victory to anti-abortion Republicans by repealing Roe v. Wade , Senate Democrats are moving to protect interstate travel for abortion care.

The Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act of 2022 , shared exclusively with HuffPost, aims to counteract some of these attacks by protecting the right to travel freely from state to state to seek reproductive health care services. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) introduced the bill Tuesday morning, along with nearly three dozen Democratic co-sponsors, including Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced that Democrats in the lower chamber will soon vote on similar legislation, aimed at addressing the GOPs disturbing threats to restrict Americans freedom to travel reaffirming the Constitutional right to seek care freely and voluntarily throughout the country.

The Senate legislation underscores the constitutional protections found in the 14th Amendment for patients traveling across state lines for abortion care and the physicians who provide that care in pro-choice states. The Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act also empowers the U.S. attorney general and impacted individuals to bring civil suits against anyone who attempts to restrict a persons right to cross state lines to receive reproductive health care services.

I know, after being home and talking with our health care providers, some of the laws in other states are having a chilling effect even in my state, Cortez Masto told HuffPost. So, it is critical that not only are we protecting women and giving them the right to travel for critical reproductive health care to states like Nevada, were also protecting providers as well as those large companies and employers who want to assist women to receive this reproductive care.

The bill defines reproductive services as medical, surgical, counseling, or referral services related to pregnancy, the termination of a pregnancy, contraception services, and other reproductive care. It also specifies that the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and each territory and possession of the United States is defined as a state under the proposed legislation.

Read the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act in full. Story continues below.

The House bill , sponsored by Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas), is expected to be passed by the House on Friday, Fletcher told HuffPost.

Its not theoretical. Yeah, this is happening, and we need to protect our constituents. We need to protect people across this country in this moment, Fletcher said.

Like Cortez Mastos bill, Fletchers bill would create a right to sue people in federal district court if, acting under state law, they restricted or impeded abortion providers or their assistants from providing care to out-of-state residents. It would also allow lawsuits against people who restricted or impeded the ability to travel across state lines for obtaining an abortion in a state where its legal.

Additionally, Fletchers bill would prohibit restricting the movement in interstate commerce of drugs that would terminate a pregnancy.

Not only does Congress have the authority to do this under the right to regulate commerce for interstate travel, but its within our powers as just enumerated in the Dobbs decision that this is left to the elected representatives, Fletcher said.

Since Roe fell, over a dozen states have already banned or severely restricted abortion, and more are likely to follow suit in the coming weeks forcing many people to travel across state lines to seek abortion care .

As I see it, some of the other abortion-related legal questions raised by todays decision are not especially difficult as a constitutional matter, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the recent Dobbs decision overturning Roe. For example, may a state bar a resident of that state from traveling to another state to obtain an abortion? In my view, the answer is no, based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.

But Kavanaughs opinion on the constitutionality of an interstate travel abortion ban hasnt deterred some anti-abortion politicians from pursuing that route. Republicans and many heavyweight anti-abortion groups have already proposed legislation to restrict patients from crossing state lines for abortion services.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R), who recently banned abortion in nearly all cases in her state, said there will be a debate about how to handle future cases of people traveling out of South Dakota to get abortions. And state lawmakers have already started trying to restrict interstate travel in places like Missouri and Texas.