“She sided again and again with the extremists who have spent decades trying to take our rights away”

 

Augusta, Maine – Today in the Portland Press Herald, Mainer Allison Kupfer Poteet calls out Susan Collins for turning her back on women and failing to stand up for their rights when it matters most. 

 

Kupfer Poteet slams Collins’ record of siding with extremists over Maine women – from casting the decisive vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh and paving the way for Roe to be overturned, to continuing to support anti-choice judges, to now backing the SAVE Act, which could create new barriers to voting for more than 343,000 Maine women.

 

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Portland Press Herald: Susan Collins has turned her back on women | Opinion 

By Allison Kupfer Poteet

April 6, 2026

 

  • For years, Collins has tried to portray herself as a moderate voice who supports women. We’ve heard her say she’s “concerned” so often it has become a running joke across the state.

 

  • But when the most important votes of her career came, Collins chose not to stand up for women. Instead, she sided again and again with the extremists who have spent decades trying to take our rights away.

 

  • In 2018, Sen. Collins voted to put Brett Kavanaugh on the U.S. Supreme Court. Back then, she told the people of Maine that the law protecting abortion, Roe v. Wade, was not going to change. A lot of people believed her. But just a few years later, Roe was overturned in the Dobbs decision — ending nearly 50 years of constitutional protection for reproductive freedom.

 

  • For those of us in Maine, the threat is real — especially with many rural communities already struggling with access to health care. And even after Roe was overturned, Collins has refused to stand up for women.

 

  • When the Senate had the opportunity to restore Roe v. Wade through the Women’s Health Protection Act, Collins voted against it.

 

  • She has also continued to rubber-stamp Trump-appointed anti-choice judges working to strip reproductive rights away from women across the country. These judges will serve for decades and will decide whether women can access reproductive health care.

 

  • And now Collins is backing policies that will undermine women’s rights in another way — by making it harder for them to vote. She recently cast a decisive vote for the SAVE Act, legislation that would impose new documentation requirements for voter registration.

 

  • In Maine alone, 343,619 women could face new barriers to registering or casting a ballot under legislation that Collins supports.

 

  • [...] More people recognize that Susan Collins is not the moderate she claims to be and it’s finally catching up to her. Mainers can famously spot phonies and sycophants, and politicians who say one thing and do another. 

 

  • Her record is clear. Susan Collins has turned her back on women. And they will remember when they reject her at the ballot box in November.

 

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