Results tagged “dc abortion ban” from Blog for Choice

Today, a key committee of the U.S. Senate was a supposed to consider a bill to give Washington, D.C. greater autonomy over its own budget.

But, the committee won't get a chance to because of...Sen. Rand Paul.

The junior senator from the commonwealth of Kentucky filed several amendments to the D.C. budget bill, including one that would permanently ban the District from using its own money to pay for abortion care for low-income women. Sen. Paul's anti-choice antics helped derail the entire bill.

This comes a day after the senator stuck a "personhood" amendment into a flood-insurance bill - delaying action just as hurricane season heats up.

Now, you may be thinking, for a guy who's supposed to be all libertarian and states' rights-y, this behavior sure looks like big-government overreach.

Here's what Sen. Paul had to say for himself, "We don't have [control] over the states, but we do for D.C."

So, there you have it: Sen. Rand Paul, or "why Congress can't get anything done."

Earlier this month, I told you about a new proposed abortion ban that specifically targets women in our nation's capital.

And when anti-choice Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) held a hearing on the bill, he didn't even allow Washington, D.C.'s elected representative, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, to testify against it!

Today, Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, spoke out at a news conference against these attacks on D.C. women's freedom and privacy.

She joined Rep. Norton, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, and other civil- and reproductive-rights leaders to amplify their opposition to anti-choice proposals that would undermine the ability of women in the city to make personal, private medical decisions with their doctors.

Nancy said that no woman's constitutional right to choose should depend upon her ZIP code or her income:

Unfortunately, too many members of Congress disagree with this core value--and they're using Washington, D.C. as a testing ground to interfere in the personal, private decisions that women make with their doctors. We have seen what happens to women in this city when some members of Congress try to play mayor or councilmember.

And since Rep. Franks is acting like D.C.'s mayor, some D.C. residents decided they'd take their problems to him.

Rats? Potholes? Let "Mayor Franks" take care of it!

Tell your representative to oppose attacks on D.C. women.

Last fall, politicians campaigned on an agenda of creating jobs and growing our economy. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the anti-choice majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, said we needed to "be focused like a laser" on job growth.

So what have these politicians been up to? Let's look at the House's track record thus far in 2011.

In February, the House voted to eliminate all funding for Planned Parenthood, a declaration of war on contraception, cancer screenings, and other basic health care that family-planning centers, such as Planned Parenthood, provide to millions of American women and men each year.

Also in February, the House voted to eliminate all funding for Title X, the nation's only family-planning program.

In April, anti-choice lawmakers exacted as their price for keeping the government open a budget bill that bans Washington, D.C. from using its own, locally raised funds to cover abortion care for low-income women.

In May, the House passed H.R.3, the outrageous "rape-audits" bill. H.R.3 manipulates the tax code to advance anti-choice policies and could spur the IRS to audit rape and incest survivors who choose abortion care.

Later in May, the House voted to dictate whether doctors and medical students can learn about providing abortion care.

And in June, the House passed a measure that could make it impossible for a woman even to talk with her doctor about medical abortion over the Internet or through videoconferencing.

Since January, the House has taken six votes that interfere with a woman's right to make personal, private medical decisions.

How many measures to create jobs has the House passed?

Zero.

Looks like Rep. Cantor's laser is really focused on attacking women's freedom and privacy.

And the anti-choice House leadership is not done yet.

This week, the House is scheduled to vote on H.R.358, the "Let Women Die" bill. H.R.358 would allow hospitals to refuse to provide abortion care even when it's necessary to save a woman's life!

The jobs agenda? Ha! That was so 2010.

Have you had it with these never-ending attacks? Tell your representative to put a STOP to this War on Women.

There was a flurry of choice-related headlines from the states this week--some of them very, very good, some of them horrid.

Let's get the horrid news out of the way:

The commonwealth of Virginia has seen more than its fair share of extreme attacks on a woman's right to choose this year. a state board voted to adopt politically motivated rules governing health centers that provide abortion care. The new regulations threaten to close 21 abortion providers. So, women lose access to abortion care as a result of the policies passed by anti-choice politicians. As Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, stated clearly, the personal is connected to the political:

These regulations, singling out women's health centers for burdensome and medically-unnecessary new requirements, remind us once again the importance of elections. NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia will be working in the next few months to hold anti-choice elected officials accountable by mobilizing voters to elect candidates to the state General Assembly who will not play politics with women's health.

Let's cross the Potomac and get back to Washington, D.C., where a Senate committee passed a bill that does NOT include the D.C. abortion ban. You know, it's the ban that blocks the city's elected leaders from using local funds to provide abortion care to low-income women.

(Yes, I know D.C. is not a state. That's why Congress has control over the city's local affairs in the first place.)

Our activists flooded Senate offices with tons of messages, so it's good to see this bit of progress, even though the bill has a long, long way to go.

Now...are you ready for the straight-up good news of the weekend? I thought so.

For that, let's go to the Granite State. (You know, the place where Rep. Michele Bachmann thinks the Revolutionary War started.) You might recall that a state council in New Hampshire voted to end a contract with Planned Parenthood that threatened thousands of residents' access to contraception, cancer screenings, and other basic care.

You may also remember one council member, Raymond Wieczorek, who expressed his thoughts on women who use contraception:

If they want to have a good time, why not let them pay for it?

Well, this week, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (a past recipient of NARAL Pro-Choice America's Champion of Choice award) announced that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will ensure that residents of the state continue to have affordable access to these critical services.

NARAL Pro-Choice New Hampshire summed it up in this way:

We applaud Sen. Shaheen for her leadership in standing up for women's access to basic, affordable health care in our state. The Executive Council played politics with the health care of thousands of New Hampshire men and women. The public outrage, combined with Sen. Shaheen's persistence and the Obama administration's decision to ensure women's access to contraception and cancer screenings, made this important victory possible. But we encourage New Hampshire residents to continue to let their elected officials know that blatant political attacks on women's health are unacceptable.

As we told our good friend Felicity Huffman, it's best to end on a good note.

Paid for by NARAL Pro-Choice America, www.ProChoiceAmerica.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

Once again, the so-called "small-government" politicians are interfering in D.C.'s local affairs as well as women's personal, private medical decisions. 

So, the question today for all of us who are frustrated with the current landscape is, "What's next?"

As a national organization that helps elect pro-choice candidates and fights to advance pro-choice policies, we know that we must change who sits in the House of Representatives.  

We will fight until no woman's right to choose is dependent on her ZIP code or income.

This entire process has exposed just how far the anti-choice House leadership is willing to go to attack women's freedom and privacy. They are even willing to take our country to the brink of a government shutdown over issues that are unrelated to the budget deficit or other fiscal matters.

Amy Everitt is Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice California.

Rep. Mary Bono Mack, who represents California's 45th Congressional District, portrays herself as a moderate who keeps the interests of her constituents in mind. Well, in the last month, these constituents have reason to ask, "What happened to 'Moderate Mary'?"

As the U.S. House prepares to break for the August recess, Rep. Bono Mack will be back home, giving her constituents an opportunity to ask some questions:

1) Rep. Bono Mack, why did you vote to deny the citizens of Washington, D.C. the right to decide how to spend locally raised revenue?

Molly blogged about this recently, but in case you missed it, a 15-year-old policy prohibits the District of Columbia from using locally raised funds to pay for abortion services. This is principally an issue of home rule - as Congress doesn't tell any other state how to use its local revenues. Even some anti-choice members of Congress joined with their pro-choice colleagues in voting to lift the ban on July 16. Rep. Bono Mack sided with anti-choice extremists and voted against local control.

Was this just a one-time lapse in judgment? Let's go to question two.

2) Rep. Bono Mack, why did you vote to cut off funding for birth control and cancer screenings for women?

On July 24, we celebrated a great victory when the House voted to approve a spending bill that zeroed-out funding for the failed "abstinence-only" programs (which, as we all know by now, just don't work). On the way to this win, we had to beat back an amendment offered by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) to cut off federal funding for family-planning services at Planned Parenthood. The Pence amendment really underscored the hypocrisy of anti-choice rhetoric: make abortion illegal but then deny women access to contraception. Doesn't make much sense, right? Several opponents of legal abortion ran away from Pence's extreme amendment, but not Rep. Bono Mack. She voted for it!

All of this leaves us wondering: Moderate Mary, where do you really stand on issues of choice? Because these two recent votes don't line up with the pro-choice constituents in your district. Email Rep. Bono Mack to let her know that you want answers to these questions. Or, better yet, if you see her while she's home, ask her in person.