[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 32 (Wednesday, February 29, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Page S1106]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          WOMEN'S HEALTH CARE

  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, it is with great disappointment and 
bafflement that I stand here yet again in the year 2012 to draw a line 
in the sand against another outrageous attempt to roll back women's 
access to basic health care services.
  After insisting that we debate the long-settled concept of provided 
access to birth control, when 99 percent of American women use this 
medication at some point in their life, many of whom use it not even 
for contraception, Republicans have chosen to take another extreme step 
to roll back all women's health care rights. So instead of talking 
about how to grow our economy, we are wasting time on the latest 
overreach and intrusion into women's lives. When will my colleagues 
understand this very nondebatable fact, that the decisions of whether a 
woman takes one medicine or another, or what type of health care she 
should have access to, should not be the decision of her boss--a 
commonsense, simple principle, that bosses and employers should not 
make these very personal decisions. What could be more intrusive than 
that?
  Let me be clear. This debate, as the Presiding Officer said in his 
remarks, has nothing to do with religious freedom. You do not have to 
take it from me. Take it from the Supreme Court. Take it from Justice 
Antonin Scalia, one of the most conservative Justices of our Supreme 
Court.
  In the majority decision in 1990, Employment Division v. Smith, 
Justice Scalia wrote, ``We have never held that an individual's 
religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid 
law prohibiting that the State is free to regulate.'' And that is 
exactly what we are seeing here. Employers cannot pick or choose what 
laws they are going to follow. Employers cannot pick or choose if they 
want to follow this labor law or that labor law. They have to follow 
the law.
  This extreme amendment Republicans are bringing up for a vote 
tomorrow makes it clear that this is a political and ideological 
overreach, not a religious issue. The fact that they want to exempt all 
businesses from providing any preventive care for a woman is outrageous 
and a clear, callous disregard for the health and well-being of 
America's women.
  The Blunt amendment would allow any insurer or employer to refuse 
coverage for any health care service otherwise required under the 
Affordable Care Act, jeopardizing vital and necessary health care 
services for millions of Americans, services such as prenatal care that 
help our babies survive; fertility treatments; testing for HIV; mental 
health services; screening for cervical cancer; screening for type 2 
diabetes; vaccinations.
  Coverage for any or all of these services and countless others could 
be denied to any person under this radically broad amendment. This 
amendment is not just dangerous for women, it is also dangerous to our 
children, and children's health groups are opposing this amendment 
because vaccines could be denied on the basis of personal belief. 
Denying childhood preventive care could negatively influence their 
health as adults, adding billions of dollars in additional health care 
costs throughout the lives of these children as they grow.
  We will not stand for these attempts to undermine the ability of a 
woman to make her own decision about what is best for her and what is 
best to protect her children. If our Republican colleagues want to 
continue to take this issue head on, we will stand here as often as 
necessary to draw a line in the sand and to make it known that in the 
Senate we oppose these attacks on women's rights and women's health. 
And even if House Republicans are not going to allow women's voices to 
be heard in their hearings, women's voices will surely be heard all 
across our country.
  It is time to agree that women deserve access to preventive health 
care services regardless of where they work and who their boss is. It 
is time to agree to get back to work on legislation that can create 
jobs and get our economy moving. That is what the American people want 
us to be debating. That is what our mission should be here in Congress, 
and that is where our sole focus should be, not on undermining 
protection and well being for America's women.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________