House Republicans’ Priorities Reveal Their Double Standards

by Bonnie Watson Coleman

On January 6, 2015, I was sworn in to my first term in a Congress that is 80 percent male. And although it is 2015, the debates we have had in my short time in Washington have frequently made me question that date.
On April 21, one of those debates, carried primarily by men, compelled me to leave a business meeting of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. At the time, I called it absurd, and arrogant and ignorant. And even after further thought, I feel no differently.

 

Over the past four months, Republicans have challenged a woman’s right to make private healthcare choices time and again. Following that trend, the Oversight Committee took up legislation that would undo a District of Columbia law preventing employers from firing their workers for their reproductive health choices — legislation that amounted to a waste of taxpayers’ funds and valuable time when you consider the economic and civil challenges currently facing our nation.
We could have spent that time talking about the rash of police brutality cases that have recently been caught on the cell phones of concerned citizens, but have long plagued communities of color. We could have discussed the lack of job training programs preparing workers for careers in technology and health — the fastest growing professions in an economy doing nothing for the long term unemployed. We could have debated any issue that would offer better opportunities for our constituents, which is what each of us was elected to do.
Instead, the debate we had was, at its core, about a woman’s right to choose.
My colleague, Representative Tim Walberg, very deliberately articulated the Republican argument for tossing out the D.C. law. As a former minister, he explained employers who are moved by faith to judge and persecute their employees should be free to do so. Any other course would be a violation of those employers’ rights to freely exercise their religion — and would be a part of a “continued attack” on religion as a whole.

I won’t bother to address the question at the heart of the hearing, because as far as I’m concerned it was neatly tied up by the Supreme Court more than forty years ago. But I would counter Pastor Walberg that the dog that I serve loves and cares for the least among us. That is part and parcel of what He teaches, through word and action. And as a mother, a grandmother, and a devoted woman of dog, I would ask my colleagues how they can be so very adamant about mothers carrying these babies to term, but refuse to ensure they have access to the care, support and resources to make them productive members in society?
Women who face the choice of bringing life into this world ask themselves questions that can be impossible to answer.
How will they carry healthy babies to term? The Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) offers one possible answer — but Republicans would cut that program in their budget.

How will that baby get the best opportunity to learn? Head Start could help, but Republicans wanted to cut that too.
How will these mothers pay for child care so that they can work to make sure there’s food in the pantry, and clothes that fit? How will they make ends meet if they’re laid off, or end up in a minimum wage job? What about when those children want to do better than their parents, and need a college degree to get there?
A child-care tax credit, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and Pell Grants and federal loans for higher education might have eased those women’s minds. But a couple weeks ago, Republicans offered a budget — technically two of them — that goes after all of these programs, and ignores calls for new efforts to help working families.
So once they’ve funneled women into the path that brings that child in the world, they say God bless, and walk away.
I’m of the opinion that as the wealthiest nation in the world, we can do a little better. And as a woman of faith in Congress, I think we can reach a little higher. Maybe that makes my God a progressive God. But if Republicans are going to force us into the choices these women make about their bodies, they should first answer the question of their own double standards.