Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to House Amendment to S. National Sea Grant College Program Amendments Act of Providing for Consideration of S. Motor Vehicle Safety Whistleblower Act; and Waiving A Requirement of Clause 6(A) of Rule Xiii with Respect to Consideration of Certain Resolutions Reported From the Committee on Rules

Floor Speech

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I oppose this closed rule on an obnoxious bill. This bill is just another attempt in a long line of Republican attempts to interfere with women's health choices. This bill is part of a disturbing national trend. Some legislators at the Federal, State, and local level are attempting to insert religious exemptions into antidiscrimination and pro-women's health laws with which they do not agree.

Rather than trying a frontal assault on the laws themselves--which they know they would lose--they seek instead to use the premise of religion to allow further discrimination against women. We must not let them succeed.

Let's be clear what this is really all about. The Republicans are not happy with the Supreme Court's pro-choice decisions. They are not happy with the Affordable Care Act, which provides contraceptive coverage to millions of women with no out-of-pocket costs.

But try as they may, they cannot overturn Roe v. Wade and they cannot repeal ObamaCare. The American people won't let them do that. So now they are trying to bring religion into the discussion and dare us to oppose what they call basic First Amendment principles about freedom of religion. Well, guess what: that is not going to work either.

We see their bias, we see their intent, and we will not let them enshrine discrimination into Federal law. We won't let you punish women just because you are not pro-choice. That is not going to happen.

Let's be honest. This is not about religion; it is about abortion and contraception. So let's stop the charade.

In this case, the bill's sole purpose is to deny access to, and create more barriers to women seeking medical procedures that are legal and constitutionally protected. The bill would enable employers and healthcare companies to override women's personal reproductive health decisions. We have said this before and we will say it again: women's reproductive healthcare decisions simply should not be their boss' business.

Religious convictions should be protected but cannot be permitted to infringe on the rights of others. Employers, other than religious institutions, have no right to impose their religious opinions on their employees. An employer's opinion about the propriety of birth control or abortion must have no bearing on whether an employee can get access to abortion or birth control services.

Certainly no woman should be denied information about her medical condition or about birth control or abortion because of the religious opinions of her employer; that is not protecting the religious opinion of the employer. That is projecting the religious opinion of the employer onto the employee in derogation of her rights. Religious protections must not be used as a sword against the rights of third parties. They must be used as a shield to protect your own religious liberty, but not to hurt other people.

I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this bill.

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