Republicans Will Pay: Outrage Grows Over Congress’ 29th Assault Against Women in 4 Months

Planned Parenthood is not impressed with Congress. Specifically they are unimpressed with this Republican Congress’ (and a handful of Democrats’) ability to outright deny science and medicine in order to feed their political agenda.

Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, issued a statement upon the news that Republicans had once again passed yet another ill-conceived bill:

“There is no science or medicine behind this bill — just politics. This is the 29th time in four months that Congress has tried to restrict abortion, which is outrageous. The American public does not want politicians to interfere in women’s personal medical decisions and does not want Congress to spend its time on this.

“While women should not have to justify their personal medical decisions, the reality is that abortion later in pregnancy is very rare and often happens under very complex circumstances — the very kind of circumstances where a woman and her doctor need every medical option available to them.”

They aren’t alone. 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Secretary Hillary Clinton’s senior policy adviser Maya Harris pointed out that Republicans are putting women’s health at risk in a statement, “The bill puts women’s health and rights at risk, undermines the role doctors play in health care decisions, burdens survivors of sexual assault, and is not based on sound science.”

Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was also unimpressed, calling out Republicans for failing to do anything but restrict rights for women, “The failed leadership of the Republican Congress has the jobs of hundreds of thousands of American workers being threatened by upcoming deadlines, with expiration of the Highway Trust Fund and the expiration of the Export-Import Bank days away. We have an urgent need for legislation to create jobs, raise wages and grow our economy for hard-working American families.

“Yet instead of creating jobs or strengthening hard-working families, Republicans have advanced another radical and unconstitutional effort to dismantle women’s right to comprehensive health care. This vote is just the latest measure in an unprecedented series of Republican assaults on women’s health care this Congress, from restricting how women can spend private money in purchasing coverage to enabling D.C. employers to fire women for buying birth control.

“Republicans should stop wasting time with radical assaults on women’s health, and start spending that energy finding solutions to the manufactured crises they have forced on the American people.”

But Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) called the bill “the most pro-life legislation to ever come before this body”, which is odd because this bill actually endangers women’s health and their fertility, and interferes in a doctor’s right to make a judgment call for his or her patient. We can only assume that women are not included in “precious life” that Republicans are trying to protect, even as they work to make the one thing that actually reduces abortions less available (birth control).

Boehner also claimed that the bill reflects the will of the people, as if the will of the people has anything to do with what Republicans do in the House.

It’s also just horribly sad to force even more anguish upon a woman and her family who are facing horrible choices in a pregnancy. This is not an area for legislators. This is a personal liberty issue that impacts families across the country, and I highly doubt that even hardcore Republican families will be very pleased when they realize that their vote means they don’t get a say in whether Mommy gets medical treatment or dies. That’s a far cry from “small government”.

Of course Republicans have been spared facing the consequences of much of their crazy because the Senate has been a speed bump, and President Obama keeps his veto pen handy when Republicans start stealing Constitutionally-protected freedoms from citizens.

Here’s an idea. Why don’t legislators try to do the thing they were hired to do and that we pay them to do — which is not, last I checked, practicing medicine or denying privacy rights to half of the population. Congress should consider leaving medicine to the people who know things about it or at the very least respect science and are able to comprehend basic things like the results of a study or the meaning of “viable”.

Republicans in Congress– doing nothing for the unemployed and underemployed or infrastructure or public safety or homeland security. They’re just here to troll women’s liberties. Relentlessly. Twenty-nine times in four months.

The egregious assault on personal liberty continues unabated, and women are not impressed.