[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 121 (Wednesday, July 23, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Page S7141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES RULE

  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court 
carefully crafted the Roe v. Wade decision to serve as the balanced 
foundation on which the reproductive rights of women could rest. Now, 
in 2008, the Bush administration is making a late-stage power grab 
based on a foundation of flawed ideology.
  A flawed ideology that has the potential to harm millions of American 
women.
  Today, I join many of my colleagues in telling this administration 
that their ideology has no place in the health care system that 
American women depend upon.
  Last week, it came to my attention that the Department of Health and 
Human Services is circulating a draft regulation that would jeopardize 
the reproductive health of women and their fundamental freedom of 
choice.
  Studies show that the use of family planning reduces the probability 
of a woman having an abortion by 85 percent. But this rule could 
severely limit a woman's access to these family planning resources by 
adopting an alarmingly broad definition for the term ``abortion.''
  This definition would allow health care professionals to classify 
contraceptives like birth control pills, intra-uterine devices, IUDs, 
and emergency contraceptives as ``abortions.'' Based on this 
classification, health care professions could refuse access for women 
who need these resources.
  As such, this proposal would greatly increase the chances of women 
encountering hospital and clinic staff who would prevent them from 
receiving the information they need to make thoughtful, personal 
decisions about their health, and may even refuse to write 
prescriptions for basic birth control.
  Fundamentally, this Bush administration proposal undermines 
everything we have worked to achieve in the last 35 years.
  It could endanger access to birth control and upend the federal title 
X family planning program. In 2006 alone, title X provided family 
planning services to approximately 5 million women and men through a 
network of more than 4,400 community-based clinics.
  It could endanger State laws and regulations like the one in my State 
that require equitable coverage for contraceptives under insurance 
plans that cover other prescriptions.
  And it could even endanger a sexual assault or rape victim's access 
to emergency contraception in a hospital emergency room. An 
unimaginable thought for the millions of American women every year who 
turn to emergency contraceptives following a traumatic event in their 
lives.
  Seventy-six percent of voters strongly support doing everything we 
can to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies through commonsense 
measures.
  This is an assault on a common goal of preventing unintended 
pregnancies and reducing the number of abortions in this country.
  And it is unacceptable.
  For the millions of women across this Nation, I strongly urge this 
administration to reconsider their stance and put reproductive health 
above partisan politics and ideology.

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