ICYMI: Dem Women’s Caucus Members Push Back Against Republican Attacks on Reproductive Rights During First Week of Appropriations Markups

Washington D.C. – ICYMI, last week, Democratic Women’s Caucus members of the House Appropriations Committee spoke out and fought back against Republican efforts to attack reproductive rights via the annual appropriations bill.

During the hearings, DWC members spoke out against a harmful amendment to the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, which would prohibited the VA from providing abortion care in the case of rape or incest, or to protect the health or life of the mother:

• House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rep. Rosa DeLauro: “The decision to get an abortion should be made by a woman and her family—trust her, respect her—in consultation with her doctor and in accordance with her own faith. This decision should not be made by the people in this room.”
• DWC Chair Rep. Lois Frankel: “This draconian amendment attacks our women veterans. Women who went into the military with pride. Patriots who left their homes and their loved ones to stand up for our freedom. It is time for us to stand up for theirs.”
• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “We especially have to protect veterans in states that ban or severely restrict abortions. It is essential to a person’s freedom to make decisions over their own body in consultation with their doctor.”
• Rep. Susie Lee: “We should be focused on improving access to medical care for our veterans, not taking away their care and restricting the choices we have. As we mark the one-year anniversary since Roe v. Wade was overturned, our veterans face significant barriers to care at a time when states all across the country are decimating access to abortion care.”
• Rep. Barbara Lee: “Yet again, the majority is trying to implement an abortion ban for our nation’s veterans and their families. An abortion ban for our largest healthcare system and the millions of people it serves. So, yet again, because it seems my Republican colleagues have forgotten, I ask, do you know better than the veterans that you represent, what is best for their bodies? Their families? Do you truly think that you have the right to make personal health decisions for our veterans?”
• Rep. Betty McCollum: “These are women who stood up, took an oath of office, risked their lives for our freedoms. And if this committee moves this amendment forward, we are telling those women veterans and their dependents, thanks for your service, but your reproductive healthcare needs really don’t matter.”
• Rep. Lauren Underwood: “This type of an amendment makes it very difficult for the VA to recruit these providers because of the fear that we know that women healthcare providers have in this current threat environment where we have state lawmakers advancing policies that seek to put these providers in jail.”

DWC Members also spoke out against a harmful rider in the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations bill which would roll back the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, the main form of medication abortion, to prevent it from being dispensed over the counter or prescribed via telehealth and received by mail:

• House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rep. Rosa DeLauro: “The committee has no business overturning the considered decision of the FDA. Particularly, just to make it harder for women to get an abortion.”
• DWC Chair Rep. Lois Frankel: “Women must be able to decide if and when they want to start to grow their families, not politicians. Mifepristone is a safe and effective medicine that has been used for twenty years.”
• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “And like other anti-abortion riders, this is an attack on our fundamental rights. The antithesis of being pro-America is to supplant people’s freedoms with religious ideologies.”
• Rep. Barbara Lee: “Efforts to unjustifiably restrict access to mifepristone and ban abortions and related care is fundamentally undemocratic and is an assault on personal freedoms.”
• Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman: “This is a medication that has been determined to be safe and effective, not for five years, not for seven years, not for ten years, but at least two decades. In fact, more than 53% of women who find a need or a desire to terminate a pregnancy do so with this medication.”

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