[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 257]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    40TH ANNIVERSARY OF ROE V. WADE

  (Mr. HOLT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, 40 years ago today the Supreme Court affirmed 
the dignity and independence of each American woman. The result of the 
decision was an understanding that our Constitution guaranteed 
decisions about a woman's own body should be left up to that woman, in 
consultation with her doctor, her family, and her religion, not the 
Federal Government.
  There is now a generation of women who do not remember the time 
before Roe v. Wade, a time when men assumed they could say what women 
could and could not do about their personal private health care and 
reproduction.
  We still have a lot of work to do. Unfortunately, over the past 40 
years there have been numerous legislative attempts to deny this right 
to women and treat women who exercise control over their own bodies as 
criminals.
  We have to make sure that we defend also Title X, maternal and child 
health care programs, public access to reproductive health care, and 
that we reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. But we must 
remember the time before Roe v. Wade and what is at stake.

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