[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 87 (Tuesday, June 22, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H4734-H4735]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ``W'' IS FOR WAR ON WOMEN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, along with my Democrat women colleagues, 
I want to express my outrage at the Bush administration's way to wage 
devastating war on women from the first day he took office.
  The women in America knew from the past 4 years that ``W'' is for War 
on Women, and the two reports that my colleague the gentlewoman from 
Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) discussed highlight this fact.
  I would also like to mention another report issued earlier this year 
by the Union of Concerned Scientists entitled ``Scientific Integrity in 
Policy Making and Investigation Into the Bush Administration's Misuse 
of Science.'' This report documents the unprecedented manipulation, 
suppression, and misrepresentation of science across disciplines 
ranking from the environment and climate change to military 
intelligence and public health as well as attacks on issues that 
specifically affect women.
  As a microbiologist, I am particularly concerned with Mr. Bush's 
blatant disregard for science. As these three reports demonstrate, the 
President is clearly engaged in a war on women with particularly 
vicious attacks on women's reproductive rights.
  Let me give you a few examples. President Bush is doing everything in 
his power to restrict and eventually eliminate a women's 
constitutionally protected right to abortion. The Bush administration 
supports and is vigorously defending the first Federal law that bans 
medically necessary abortion procedures since Roe v. Wade, a law that 
contains no exception to protect a woman's health. It is plainly 
unconstitutional.

[[Page H4735]]

  President Bush and his administration have taken multiple actions to 
imbue embryos and fetuses with the status of personhood in an effort to 
undermine Roe v. Wade, even at the expense of potentially life-saving 
medical research and has distorted scientific information to further 
its anti-abortion and anti-family planning agenda.
  President Bush also endorsed unnecessary legislation that establishes 
a fetus, embryo, and even a fertilized egg as an independent victim of 
a crime and, thus, a legal person with the same legal rights as live 
and born individuals, and, particularly, as its mother.
  Ironically, at the same time he is attacking a woman's right to 
choose, he is making every, every effort to inhibit the ability to 
prevent unintended pregnancies. The Bush administration has 
consistently proposed inadequate and often even reduced funding for 
Title X, the family planning programs which provide women with family 
planning and other health care across the country.
  The administration tried to end the requirement that health insurance 
plans offered to Federal employees which includes the coverage of 
prescription contraceptives if the plan covers other prescription drugs 
and devices such as Viagra.
  President Bush named to the Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory 
Committee of the FDA Dr. David Hager, who reportedly has refused to 
prescribe birth control to unmarried women and has suggested prayer to 
women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome.
  The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention under President Bush 
replaced a comprehensive online fact sheet about condoms with one 
lacking crucial information on their use.
  On his first day in office President Bush reinstated the global gag 
rule and extended it to the entire State Department.
  For 3 consecutive years, George Bush has withheld funding for the 
life saving reproductive health services offered through the United 
Nations Population Fund in over 150 poor countries around the world.
  President Bush promotes the unproven abstinence only sex education 
programs, denying our Nation's young people critical information on 
ways to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including 
HIV/AIDS, even though we know that over 60 percent of 12th graders 
report having had sexual intercourse.
  In fact, recent analysis of abstinence only programs found that such 
programs can actually reduce the use of condoms when program 
participants become sexually active, increasing their risk of 
pregnancy.
  In my opinion, the President's ``abstinence only'' programs should be 
more accurately labeled ``ignorance only,'' and we are placing the very 
lives of our youth in danger. This is unconscionable.
  When the Nation is in such a severe budget crunch and running 
skyrocketing deficits, George Bush's decisions to spend millions upon 
millions of dollars on a program that is not only unproven but 
potentially harmful is dumbfounding. Moreover, he is also exporting 
this dangerous ignorance policy to other countries around the world.
  Another example is the administration posting information on the 
National Cancer Institute Web site which misleadingly suggested a link 
between abortion and breast cancer despite objections from the Centers 
of Disease Control staff who said that scientific study has long 
refuted that connection.
  Mr. Speaker, at this point I will insert the remainder of my 
statement into the Record.
  In fact, the Bush Administration had to pull the false information 
off the Web site after significant outcry from the scientific community 
and the American public.
  The most recent transgression is a decision by the Bush 
Administration's Food and Drug Administration to reject Barr 
Laboratories' application to make its emergency contraception, Plan B, 
available to women over-the-counter.
  In doing so, the Bush Administration once again demonstrated its 
blatant disregard for the health and well-being of American women.
  According to press reports, George Bush's political appointees based 
this decision on politics instead of science, going against an 
overwhelming vote by an independent expert advisory committee and his 
own staff at the FDA.
  Such an action is unprecedented.
  The FDA's scientific advisory panel and staff overwhelmingly 
recommended that this drug be made available to American women over-
the-counter, because they know what we all know: The scientific facts 
irrefutably show that this drug is a safe, effective way for women to 
prevent unintended pregnancy. The scientific data show beyond a shadow 
of a doubt that Plan B could cut our Nation's unintended pregnancy rate 
in half and reduce the number of abortions performed in our Nation by 
hundreds of thousands.
  But in an outrageous move, the FDA ignored the expertise of its own 
scientists and staff--and the will of American women and hundreds of 
women's, health and doctors' groups--and instead denied this safe 
contraceptive over-the-counter status.
  The FDA threw the facts out the window and instead caved to pressure 
from right-wing ideologues.
  Even FDA officials admitted that this decision was unusual. And last 
April, two FDA scientists wrote an article in which they openly 
speculated that political pressure was influencing the FDA's decision 
on emergency contraception.
  We must get to the bottom of how this decision was allowed to happen. 
We cannot jeopardize future FDA decisions with partisan pandering.
  American women trust the FDA to make the best decisions possible with 
respect to their health.
  We absolutely must be able to trust that the federal agency 
responsible for allowing us access to miraculous drugs will leave 
politics out of decisions that can so profoundly affect our health.
  In my mind, the FDA's decision on Plan B has completely shattered 
this trust, especially in the leadership of the FDA.
  Therefore, my colleague Henry Waxman and I spearheaded a letter along 
with 28 of our colleagues asking the General Accounting Office to 
conduct an investigation into the influence of partisan politics upon 
the FDA, eviscerating its ability to make decisions based upon sound 
science.
  I also believe that FDA Acting Commissioner Lester Crawford and Dr. 
Steve Galson, acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation 
and Research, need to be held accountable for this outrageous decision 
that so clearly goes against the scientific data.
  Therefore, I have called upon President Bush to request their 
resignations. Only when partisan politics are no longer allowed to take 
precedence over science will our trust in the FDA be restored.
  There are so many other examples of President Bush and his cronies 
riding roughshod over science that I do not have time to discuss them 
all this evening.
  However, I would encourage the American public to take a look at all 
of these reports to find out what the Bush Administration doesn't want 
you to know.
  As I noted a few minutes ago, the President's moniker that ``W is for 
Women'' is a joke.
  Mr. President, no one is laughing, because the actions you have taken 
against women are having devastating consequences.
  Indeed, you have proven time and again that ``W is for WAR on 
Women.''
  Mr. President, the women of America know what you are doing, and we 
will not stand for it!

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