Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act
Floor Speech
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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I think we can all agree there is a lot of work that needs to be done in this Congress--priorities such as continuing to improve health care for our families, creating jobs, boosting wages, expanding economic security for workers, and making higher education more affordable and accessible, just to name a few. Unfortunately, instead of working with Democrats to focus on those challenges--the ones that families face every day--far too many Republicans have doubled down on a favorite pastime--attacking women's health and rights in order to pander to their extreme base.
I am very proud to be on the floor today with many of my Democratic colleagues to say enough is enough and to make clear that even as Republicans try to take women's health backwards, we are going to push harder in the other direction for continued progress on women's access to health care and constitutionally protected reproductive rights.
This year alone, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America, more than 40 bills have been introduced in this Congress that would undermine a woman's constitutionally protected right to make her own choices about her own body. The House and Senate have voted a total of 17 times--17 times--on legislation to undermine women's health care and rights. That is right. In the year 2015--in the year 2015 alone--Republicans in Congress have introduced over 40 bills and held 17 votes on whether Congress should roll back women's rights. That is completely unacceptable. The bill we are debating here on the floor today would defund Planned Parenthood, and that is just more of the same. It is another effort to force through extreme policies under a fast-track process.
A vote on the bill before us today is a vote on whether a young woman should be able to go to the provider she trusts to get birth control, whether cancer screenings should be more or less available to women across the country, and whether the 2.7 million men and women who visit Planned Parenthood each year should continue to get health care services they rely on.
Over the last few months of Republican political attacks on Planned Parenthood and women's health, I have been proud to stand with women nationwide who are making their voices heard and fighting for their right to make their own health care decisions--women such as Shannon, who lives in Tumwater, WA, and says the care she received at Planned Parenthood as a young woman protected her ability to have children and that today she has Planned Parenthood to thank for her little girl; women such as Breanne from Seattle, who went to Planned Parenthood as an uninsured student, where providers caught abnormal cell growth on her cervix wall before--before--it could turn into cancer; and the women and advocates at the Planned Parenthood Center in Pullman, WA, who, after their building was damaged in an arson attack, came together as a community and established a pop-up clinic to make sure that women and families could continue to get the care they needed.
I know many of us here today are thinking of those who are suffering and who lost loved ones as a result of the tragic violence in Colorado Springs last week. People across the country--men and women--have had enough of extremism and violence, including at Planned Parenthood health care centers. When a woman seeks health care--constitutionally protected health care--she should not have to feel threatened in any way. A doctor in a women's health clinic should not have to worry about wearing a bulletproof vest under her lab coat. Women's health care should not be controversial, much less a cause for violence in the 21st century. Women and their families have had enough.
I have heard from so many women and men who are tired of women's health being undermined, being threatened, and being used as a political football here in Washington, DC. Who can believe that in the 21st century a Presidential candidate would claim that expanding access to birth control is as easy as setting up a few more vending machines in men's bathrooms? These women and men across the country are speaking up and saying ``not on our watch'' to those who want to turn back the clock on women's health and women's rights. I am going to continue, along with my colleagues, to bring their voices and their stories and their fight to the Senate floor.
As we all know, this is a tired political effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and take Planned Parenthood down with it. It is at a dead end. But if Republicans are going to try to cut off women's access to health care, I am going to make sure they hear about it and that people across this country know exactly where Democrats stand--with women. That is why I am very proud to be introducing this amendment today that would strike the harmful language defunding Planned Parenthood from this legislation and replace it--replace it--with a new fund to support women's health care and clinic safety.
There is so much more we need to do to improve women's health care in this country today, from strengthening the women's health care workforce to expanding access to constitutionally protected reproductive health care to raising awareness about violence against women--so much more. This fund that is part of this amendment would offer an opportunity to make progress on goals such as these and more to support women's health providers and clinics at a time when they need it most. Critically, it would show women and families that their constitutional rights, that their safety and their health care should come before tea party political pandering, not the other way around. By the way, this amendment is fully paid for by the Buffett rule.
Democrats are going to keep standing up for women and encouraging Republicans to focus on the real challenges that families face, rather than their political attacks that their tea party base is so focused on. I urge my colleagues to join me in standing against this harmful effort to defund Planned Parenthood and delivering a clear message, again, to Republicans in Congress who want to play politics with women's health--not on our watch.
I yield the floor.
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