IV 
113TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 94 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding women’s 
health and economic security. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 28, 2013 
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Commit-
tees on Education and the Workforce and Ways and Means, for a period 
to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consider-
ation of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee 
concerned 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives 
regarding women’s health and economic security. 
Whereas improving the health and well-being of women is a 
stated goal of Healthy People 2020, the comprehensive, 
nationwide health promotion and disease prevention agen-
da launched by the United States Department of Health 
and Human Services; 
Whereas older women and women with disabilities rely on 
Medicare and low-income women rely on Medicaid for af-
fordable, quality health care; 
Whereas access to comprehensive reproductive health care is 
critical to improving the health and well-being of women; 
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•HRES 94 IH 
Whereas uninsured women are 3 times less likely to have had 
a Pap test in the last 3 years, with a 60 percent greater 
risk of late-stage cervical cancer diagnosis; 
Whereas 50 percent of uninsured women do not have a reg-
ular doctor compared to 11 percent of insured women; 
Whereas significant racial and ethnic disparities exist in 
women’s health, particularly in maternal mortality, infant 
mortality, and incidence of premature or low birth weight 
births; 
Whereas lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) 
women have unique health care needs and confront a 
unique set of disparities in the current health care sys-
tem; 
Whereas pregnant women are often excluded from research 
studies violating the ethical principle of justice; 
Whereas federally funded research is a critical component to 
understanding health conditions in women across the life 
span, and has led to many scientific breakthroughs that 
have been become clinical standards of care; 
Whereas about half of pregnancies are unintended, though 
preventing unintended pregnancies benefits child health, 
maternal health, and the health and well-being of families 
and society as a whole; 
Whereas there are continued efforts to defund or eliminate 
family planning programs, even though they are proven 
to reduce unintended pregnancies and reduce the need 
for abortions; 
Whereas the Medicaid program covers 71 percent of publicly 
funded family planning services and over 40 percent of 
all United States births and the Title X Family Planning 
program serves over 5,000,000 low-income men and 
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women a year who often do not have insurance or qualify 
for Medicaid; 
Whereas there have been numerous attempts, both legal and 
legislative, to allow insurance companies and employers 
with personal religious or moral objections to deny 
women the Affordable Care Act preventive services ben-
efit requiring coverage for all FDA approved contracep-
tive methods, despite the fact that such services are 
based on a foundation of scientific, medical evidence sup-
porting the effectiveness of preventive services; 
Whereas over-the-counter emergency contraception is not 
available to all women, even though the American College 
of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American 
Academy of Pediatrics recommend increased access to 
emergency contraception, without an age restriction, as a 
back-up birth control option, as research shows it pre-
vents unintended pregnancies and reduces the need for 
abortion; 
Whereas a lack of adequate prenatal care increases the risks 
of having low birth-weight or preterm babies, neonatal 
mortality, infant mortality, and maternal mortality; 
Whereas preterm births alone costs the United States health 
care system $26,000,000,000 annually; 
Whereas many women lack access to comprehensive, afford-
able insurance coverage, even though all women should 
have this for all pregnancy-related care, including pre-
natal care, miscarriage management, family planning 
services, abortion, labor and delivery services, and post-
natal care; 
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Whereas in 2012, State legislatures passed 43 laws in 19 
States to restrict access to abortion, the second-highest 
number of such measures passed in a single year; 
Whereas efforts have been made to ban Graduate Medical 
Education funding from going towards abortion training, 
even though the Accreditation Council for Graduate Med-
ical Education (ACGME) standards stipulate that pro-
grams in obstetrics and gynecology must have an estab-
lished curriculum for family planning and managing com-
plications of abortions, and must provide the opportunity 
for direct procedural training in abortions for those resi-
dents who desire it; 
Whereas legislators have attempted to inappropriately inter-
fere with the patient-physician relationship, often to sat-
isfy political agendas without regard to established, evi-
dence-based guidelines for care; 
Whereas this type of interference can inhibit open and honest 
communication between patients and providers and also 
jeopardize patient safety; 
Whereas exposure to environmental toxicants has the poten-
tial to impact the health of women, and the health of fu-
ture generations; 
Whereas intimate partner violence affects 1,500,000 women 
each year and 324,000 pregnant women each year; the 
direct effects can include miscarriage and fetal injury or 
death, and the indirect effects can include delayed pre-
natal care, smoking, and drug and alcohol abuse; 
Whereas there is a known link between intimate partner vio-
lence and reproductive coercion, which occurs whenever a 
partner tries to stop a woman from making her own deci-
sions about pregnancy, such as interfering with contra-
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ception use, forcing sex, or pressuring her to continue or 
end a pregnancy; 
Whereas a woman must be supported not only in the decision 
to carry a pregnancy to term, but be empowered to navi-
gate the complexities of parenthood including the role as 
primary, and in some cases the sole breadwinner, active 
caregiver, employee trying to fulfill their job responsibil-
ities, and primary health care decision maker within the 
family; 
Whereas 80 percent of all caregivers are women, and approxi-
mately half of those women provide care and support for 
both children under the age of 18 and an older relative, 
and make health care decisions for at least one other per-
son in the household besides themselves; 
Whereas women are now the sole breadwinners or co-bread-
winners in the majority of United States households; 
Whereas the lack of pay equity forces women to choose be-
tween necessities for their family, like food, shelter, and 
clothing, and critical health care needs for family mem-
bers in the home; 
Whereas 43 percent of working women lack the workplace 
flexibility or have family friendly workplace policies that 
ensure that they can provide for their family during med-
ical emergencies, effectively use the preventative health 
care services available to them and their dependents, and 
stay in the workforce as long as necessary to provide fi-
nancial stability for their family; 
Whereas less than half of working women have access to any 
paid parental leave, while paid leave after the birth of a 
child leads to better health outcomes, higher rates of 
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breastfeeding and for longer duration, and better mater-
nal employment outcomes and higher wages; 
Whereas more than 40 percent of working women do not 
have a single earned sick day to care for themselves or 
their family; 
Whereas the Pregnancy Discrimination Act prevents discrimi-
nation of pregnant women in the workplace, yet many 
women still face pregnancy discrimination, such as being 
denied requests for reasonable workplace accommodations 
to continue working while pregnant; and 
Whereas women rely on Social Security for a larger share of 
their retirement income including 23 percent of older 
women who rely on Social Security for 100 percent of 
their income: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives supports 
efforts to— 
(1) make improving women’s health a priority 
in the 113th Congress; 
(2) ensure that all women have access to the 
best available, scientifically based health care; 
(3) ensure that women have access to safe 
childbearing, with resources available to reduce ma-
ternal and infant morbidity and mortality; 
(4) ensure that women have the autonomy to 
decide whether to have children, the number and 
spacing of their children, and to have medically ac-
curate information, education, and access to health 
services to make these decisions; 
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(5) ensure that women have access to afford-
able insurance coverage for all of their pregnancy-re-
lated health care needs, including contraception and 
abortion, as well as for their general health care 
needs including coverage through Medicare, Med-
icaid, and the Affordable Care Act; 
(6) work to end gender discrimination and im-
prove the health of women by implementing the Af-
fordable Care Act; 
(7) ensure that women have autonomous deci-
sionmaking, informed consent, privacy, and con-
fidentiality regarding their health care; 
(8) work to end health disparities for women, 
including with regard to ethnicity, race, gender, and 
sexual orientation; 
(9) ensure that women are able to participate 
equally in ethically conducted clinical research; 
(10) work to end gender-based violence, which 
disproportionately 
affects 
women, 
including 
transgender women; 
(11) ensure parents have and can use earned 
sick days to care for one’s self or one’s family, have 
paid leave to prepare for and recover from preg-
nancy and childbirth and to care for their children 
or a loved one, and may receive a social security 
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credit if they are forced to leave the workforce to 
care for a child or a loved one; 
(12) eliminate discrimination and promote 
women’s health and economic security by ensuring 
reasonable workplace accommodations for workers 
whose ability to perform the functions of a job are 
limited by pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical 
condition; 
(13) ensure that women receive equal pay for 
equal work; and 
(14) ensure that older women have the re-
sources needed to guarantee their financial and eco-
nomic security as they age. 
Æ 
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