Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we have had a long discussion today on the amendment to the surface transportation bill offered by my colleague and friend from Missouri, Senator Blunt. I think the discussion has shown pretty clearly that the amendment by the Senator from Missouri is both way beyond the scope of what most people envisioned and is extreme. It is way beyond the scope because it would cause the deprival of certain types of health care to perhaps millions of Americans in areas that go way beyond contraception.

All an employer would have to do is say they have a moral objection to providing vaccinations and they would not have to provide health care. Maybe the employees could sue or go to court for 10 years and figure this out, but that is not what we want. So it would be a giant step backward in terms of health care.

It is also a giant step backward in terms of depriving millions of American women of contraception. In a sense, this is a ban on contraception, at least for the millions of American women whose employers would say they do not want to provide contraception. Some might be motivated by religious beliefs, some might be motivated by simply saving money, and we would never know except after long and costly litigation. Again, that would deprive the employee of contraception for a very long time.

I think if people listened in on this debate, they would say this was a debate occurring not in 2012 but maybe in 1912 or even 1812 because issues such as a woman's right to contraception without the employer making a determination have long been decided by this country. We have seen the statistics. The overwhelming majority of Americans of every faith believe contraception should be available.

So the debate has been pretty clear. I think the other side is making a huge mistake--certainly substantively, and in my judgment politically--so much so that today the leading Presidential candidate on the Republican side, when asked whether he supported the Blunt amendment said, no; he did not think Congress should be getting involved in contraception. Mr. Romney said we should not be doing this amendment, and he did not support it, unequivocally and clearly.

A few hours later, of course, his folks walked that back, probably because of political pressure. He is facing Republican primaries where this issue is debated seriously, even if the rest of America does not believe that it should be debated. But what it shows is even when a leading candidate of the other side who is seeking votes from the hard right has doubts about whether this is a good idea, those doubts are real.

The other side should make a retreat. Our Republican colleagues should not make the same mistake they made on the payroll tax deduction by appealing to an extreme group. They should back off this amendment. They should vote with us, and we should move on and debate the highway bill and put millions of Americans to work and update our infrastructure.

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