OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Access to Birth Control for Women

Floor Speech

Date: July 16, 2014
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Women Business and Consumers Judicial Branch Health and Health Care

Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, I had hoped we would have settled this debate decades ago. Yet here we are in 2014, and we are still arguing over access to birth control for women.

According to the five-man Supreme Court majority in the Hobby Lobby case, it wasn't enough for politicians to have a say in women's access to health care. Apparently, their employers should have a say, too. This decision is yet another example of the constitutional rights of individual Americans being trumped by the apparent rights of corporations. So a woman is entitled to her own religious beliefs as long as they don't get in the way of the religious beliefs of the corporation she works for.

The Court's ruling in Hobby Lobby allows for for-profit companies to interfere with the personal health decisions of their employees, opening the door for employers to discriminate against women who are simply seeking practical medical care.

Justice Ginsburg said it best in her scathing dissent: ``The Court has ventured into a minefield.'' Now it is up to Congress to find a way out.


Source
arrow_upward