Date: 2015-09-29
Speaker: JACKSON LEE (democrat)
Chamber: H

I thank the gentlewoman from Colorado for her leadership. and I thank the gentleman. Mr. PITTS. because in actuality this is not a debate on peoples conscience and what you believe in. It is a debate and a question of the law. First of all. the underlying legislation that we have before us is likely to be ruled unconstitutional. and it is likely to be so because it meets the very four corners of why the Supreme Court ruled the Texas law to be unconstitutional. and I venture to say that this bill was a copy of the Texas law. In 2014 and 2015. the Texas legislators tried to stop reproductive healthcare clinics by requiring them to have a hospitalstyle surgery center building and staffing requirements. leaving only seven clinics to provide health care. the same thing where they threatened the same kind of thing which would only leave 10 healthcare providers. Guess what. Madam Speaker. in 2014 and 2015. the Supreme Court of the United States ruled it unconstitutional and stopped the legislature in their tracks. That is what is going to happen to this legislation as well. Let me be very clear: Planned Parenthood does not engage in selling body parts. Yes. as under the law. they do deal with fetal tissue research. which has saved millions of lives. Under the 1993 NIH Revitalization Act. it is unlawful for any person to knowingly acquire. receive. or otherwise transfer any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration if the transfer affects interstate commerce. They do not do this. The reason I know that is there has been no Department of Justice investigation. no Health and Human Services investigation. and. in actuality. Mr. Daleiden. who is not the FBI and not the Department of Justice. has. in fact. engaged in a deleterious. dastardly. and deceitful investigation. even stealingstealingthe ID of one of his fellow high school students. So I am against this bill. and I am against it for the good things that Planned Parenthood does. For example. in my State. there are 38 clinics. 150.000 young women are being served. 108.000 on contraceptives. and others are STI. Let me finish. Madam Speaker. by saying mammograms are not done in your doctors office. You get a referral. and you go to a place where you can get a mammogram with a radiologist. If we would only discuss facts. we would know that the underlying bill should be opposed. I oppose it. and I ask my colleagues to oppose it. Madam Speaker. I rise in strong opposition to the Rule and the underlying bill. I strongly oppose this latest attempt by the Republican House majority to undermine womens rights. Despite its title. the Womens Public Health and Safety Act." H.R. 3495 is nothing more than the latest string of attacks on womens health. Instead of wasting time fueling politicallycharged attacks on health care services for women. and attempting to roll back womens constitutionally protected rights. this House should be advancing legislation that will reform our broken immigration and criminal justice systems. And as we approach yet another deadline for piecemeal fiscal fixes. we should be focused on passing a comprehensive and costsavings budget. Yet. we are here today debating a bill that threatens millions of Americans access to preventative care and could end up costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars if enacted. However. we know this bill will not become law given the Presidents clear Statement of Administrative Policy issued yesterday to veto this measure. As such. HR 3495 is simply being offered here today as a shameless political decoy to attack the legal rights of women. If enacted. H.R. 3495 would give states unchecked power to exclude womens health care providers from participating in Medicaid. Hampering womens health and safety. this bill would enable states that are hostile to womens right to abortion. and to Planned Parenthood. to freely target womens health care providers for exclusion from Medicaid. The United States Supreme Court ruled over 40 years ago. in Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113 (1973)). that a womans constitutional right to privacy includes her right to abortion. Since this landmark decision. abortion rates and risks have substantially declined. as have the number of teen and unwanted pregnancies. However. politicians continue to try to sneak around the Constitution and four decades of Supreme Court precedent with sham laws that do nothing to improve womens health care and only make it more difficult. if not impossible. to obtain safe and legal abortion. Restricting all access to reproductive and womens health services only exacerbates a womans risk of an unintended pregnancy and fails to accomplish any meaningful overthrow of Roe v. Wade. In recent years. state policymakers have passed hundreds of restrictions on abortion care under the guise of protecting womens health and safety. Fights here in Congress have been no different. In my state of Texas a law that would have cut off access to 75 percent of reproductive healthcare clinics in the state was challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2014 and On October 2. 2014. the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a Texas law that required that all reproductive healthcare clinics that provided the full range of services would be required to have a hospitalstyle surgery center building and staffing requirements. This requirement meant that only 7 clinics would be allowed to continue to provide a full spectrum of reproductive healthcare to women. Any woman facing an unintended pregnancy needs to be able to make her own decisions and weigh all her optionsand these laws take those options away. Texas has 268.580 square miles. only second in size to the state of Alaska. The impact of the law in implementation would have ended access to reproductive services for millions of women in my state. In 2015. the State of Texas once again threatened womens access to reproductive health care when it attempted to shutter all but 10 healthcare providers in the state of Texas. The Supreme Court once again intervened on the behalf of Texas women to block the move to close clinics in my state. It seems every month we are faced with a new attack on womens access to reproductive health care. often couched in deceptive terms and concern for womens health and safety. And in fact we are here today supposedly to talk about the safety of womenBut we know thats not really the case. If my colleagues were so concerned about womens health and safety. they would be promoting any one of the number of evidencebased proactive policies that improve womens health and wellbeing. Instead. they are proposing yet another attempt to ban abortion. That is their number one priority. This is certainly not about protecting womens health. its about politics. We must separate the personal views of abortion from the legal issues and fundamental constitutional rights. Undisputable. every woman has the constitutional right to make personal health care decisions so basic that it must be equally protected for all. Yet. this bill provides an outright pathway to discriminate against poor and minority women. H.R. 3495 would give states broad discretion to exclude any person. institution. agency or entity that "performs or participates in the performance of abortions" from participating in Medicaid. According to policy experts and advocates. such as the ACLU and National Partnership for Women and Families. this extreme measure would mean that not only would all such womens health care providers be cut out of Medicaid. but states could also attempt to use it to eliminate a wide range of other health care providers. with serious and devastating consequences for lowincome patients. Restricting access to womens reproductive health care providers makes it increasingly difficultand sometimes impossiblefor women who have decided to end a pregnancy to get the safe. legal. highquality care they need. The result is not the elimination of abortions. but higher costs. longer delays. and extra steps for women seeking abortion care. and in the process punish women for their decision to exercise their constitutional right to end a pregnancy. History tells us that unsafe and lateterm abortions did not cease to exist without adequate access to clinical service. Rather. the exact oppositeas we know limited and restricted access only leads to unsafe and dangerous practices. Today. countless women in states like Texas and Mississippi. Wisconsin. Alabama. Tennessee. and Louisianawhere state laws are already gravely impacting womens access to health care providerswomen are being forced to travel upwards of hundreds of miles or cross state lines to access their constitutional right to an abortion. These restrictions create sharp disparities in access to care that are troublingly reminiscent of the time before Roe v. Wade. when access depended on a womans social status. where she lived or her ability to travel to another state. In an effort to undermine what they could not otherwise overturn. politicians are attempting to "turn back the clock" to the preRoe era by shuttering reproductive health care clinics and cutting off womens access to safe and legal abortion care. Yet. far too many women who cannot afford to travel elsewhere will face an impossible choice between carrying an unintended pregnancy to term or seeking drastic options outside the law. A right that only exists on paper is no right at all. Simply. restricting a womens right and access to legal abortion services discriminately endangers the lives of women. Congress should be doing everything it can to ensure that women have access to preventive care. not eliminating it. This is a legislative assault on all progressive health care. service. and advocacy organizations who aim to provide vital care and services to women and men across this country. Hundreds of thousands have already spoken up. including leading groups and communities such as the growing voice of our millennial generation. For instance. the nearly 60.000 OBGYN physicians and partners in womens health warn that this bill would scare providers away from providing comprehensive. compassionate care to women. in a time where America desperately needs more obgyns participating in Medicaid programs. Physicians and experts in the field have long argued that these damaging measures serve no medical purpose. interfere in the doctor/patient relationship. and do nothing to promote womens health. My colleagues should not be closing the door to health care services. Rather. my colleagues should be doing more to connect our youth and women to services that help them reduce their risk of unintended pregnancies and STDs. and improve their overall health through preventative screenings. education and planning. and not restricting their access to lawfully entitled family planning and private health services.