Date: 2015-09-30
Speaker: JACKSON LEE (democrat)
Chamber: H

Let me thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for her kindness. As well. let me thank the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee. because we know the work that they have done. Mr. Speaker. let me just simply say that I am very disappointed that we are now settling for a CR that continues to have a sequester that cuts across and denies Border Patrol agents. Customs and Border Protection. Secret Service. and leaves the American people vulnerable. So. the first order of business is that we are not doing what we are supposed to do in providing for the American people. Now we move to another unseemly legislative initiative that is attacking womens health. And what does that mean? We use it under the guise of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood has any number of clinics in almost 50 States that deal with womens health. contraception. sexually transmitted disease. places where women who are impoverished can go when they cannot go anywhere else. In a hearing yesterday. someone was debating why they dont do mammograms. Women know that when we go to any doctor. the doctor refers mammograms. So this is a bad bill. It is against womens health. The sequester is bad. Vote down both bills. Mr. Speaker. I rise in strong opposition to H. Con. Res. 79. We are here again wasting valuable time on measures we know are having no real chance of survival beyond these debates. I strongly oppose this continued effort to drag womens health issues and womens rights through this political circus. At what point will the Majority step back and get regal about substantive and genuine legislation. The amount of legislative time we have wasted on these offensive messaging bills is ridiculous and must end. Our constituents deserve better. Our legislative and public service roles demand more. 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 another measure that threatens millions of Americans access to preventative care and could end up costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. However. we know H. Con. Res. 79 is not a serious attempt at passing real legislation. As such. it is simply being offered here today as a shameless political decoy to attack the legal rights of women. Politicians are continuing 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. 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. I urge all Members to vote against the continued attack on womens health and rights.