House Panel Denies Elected Woman Her Right to Speak. Again.

Tell me if this sounds familiar.

This afternoon, a key subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives will hold a hearing on an anti-choice bill. The bill in question was introduced by anti-choice Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, who's also the subcommittee's chairman.

When a pro-choice elected woman requested to testify at the hearing, Rep. Franks told her NO.

What am I talking about?

Is it the all-male birth-control panel that excluded Sandra Fluke?

Is it a hearing on the "Arrest Grandma Act"?

Nope. It's a brand-new attack on women's freedom and privacy that combines some of the "greatest hits" of the past three months.

Rep. Franks is pushing a bill to ban abortion care at 20 weeks in Washington, D.C., without consideration for the woman's situation, including cases of rape, incest, or fetal anomaly.

(Hear one family's tragic story that makes clear just how cruel this sort of law really is.)

Why does a representative from Arizona get to do this?

Because the District of Columbia is not a state, and opponents of choice have long used it as their anti-choice proving ground. Rep. Franks' bill is a top priority of the anti-choice National Right to Life Committee and continues the anti-choice legacy of undermining home rule in Washington, D.C.

And the pro-choice woman who wanted to testify at the hearing? That's Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, whom D.C. citizens elected with 89 percent of the vote.

Rep. Norton is not allowed to vote on the House floor, and now, thanks to Rep. Franks, she's not allowed to speak out on a bill that will affect the women in her district, either.

Rep. Franks, by the way, got exactly zero percent of the vote in D.C., since he's from Arizona. But I guess he thinks he knows what's best for D.C. women.

Tell your representative enough is enough: stop the War on D.C. Women.