Foreign Affairs Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2006 and 2007
FOREIGN AFFAIRS AUTHORIZATION ACT, FISCAL YEARS 2006 AND 2007--Continued -- (Senate - April 05, 2005)
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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senators CORZINE and MIKULSKI to the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. COLEMAN). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, women around the world should have access to safe health care, especially those who are struggling in some of our world's poorest nations. That is why I am in the Senate this afternoon to support the Boxer amendment. I thank Senator Boxer for standing up on an issue that affects women around the globe. I am very proud to be a cosponsor and supporter of this amendment.
This amendment is about ensuring that women around the world have access to health care that they need, especially reproductive health care. It does not get much attention, but in the developing world, complication from pregnancy is one of the leading causes of death for women. It ranks right up there with tuberculosis. According to the World Health Organization, more than half a million women die every year of causes related to pregnancy or childbirth. That is more than one woman dying every minute of every day. That is what we are talking about with this amendment. That is a crisis.
Now, you know when there is a medical crisis, something that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year, we do not just stand by. We work to make things better. In poor countries around the world, medical professionals and nongovernmental organizations are simply trying to make things better. They have set up clinics. They have done an excellent job. They are reaching out to poor communities. And they are opening the doors of access to women and families who desperately need health care. They are doing great work. But today their hands are tied, and even worse their hands are tied because the Bush administration has imposed a political ideology on the world. We cannot allow this undemocratic policy to deny women and their children health care and ultimately sentence them to die.
As my colleague, Senator Boxer, has talked about, when President Bush took office in 2001, he signed an Executive order known as the global gag rule. It denies U.S. funds to any overseas health clinic unless it agrees not to use its own--its own--private, non-U.S. funds for anything related to abortion. If you are a medical professional living in an impoverished country trying to help people, save lives, you are gagged from even talking about certain reproductive health services.
We would not stand for that in the United States. We know how important the doctor-patient relationship is. When we go to a doctor, we want to know that the doctor is giving us all the advice we need--not holding something back because of a gag rule imposed on him by someone else. But that is exactly what the global gag rule does. It is forced on women in poor countries around the world, and that is just simply wrong.
I am not going to take the time to go into detail on why I believe this gag rule is so wrong, but I just want to mention a few things. Simply put, the gag rule undermines reproductive health care, it hurts our efforts to prevent HIV and AIDS, and it limits access to contraceptives. The gag rule places limits on women and doctors that we would never accept here in the United States.
But here is the bottom line and something all of our colleagues should remember as we go to vote on this amendment: This is about protecting women's lives. Today, the women around the world are being denied the care they need because of an ideological policy, and they are dying as a result. We cannot tolerate that as Americans, and that is why I have come to the floor this afternoon, to urge my colleagues to support the Boxer amendment.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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