[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 13100-13101]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             WOMEN'S HEALTH

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the Republican legislation to attack women's 
health is disguised as a way to help women. We have to look long and 
hard to find those people who are being taken care of across the 
country today because of programs that allow them to go to someone who 
knows what they are talking about when they are concerned about their 
fertility, they are concerned about birth control, and a myriad of 
other problems that happen as women go through life.
  The Republican bill pretends to be for women's health, but it would 
prohibit Federal funds to go to an organization that is the health care 
backbone for American women during their lives. In fact, it is the only 
health care that a significant number of women get. For about 30 
percent of women, that is their health care. You can disguise this by 
giving fancy titles to the legislation any way you want. This is an 
attack on women's health.

[[Page 13101]]

  It is stunning to me that the 16 people who are running for President 
are out there going after immigration. They are going after not only 
immigration generally but specifically. These young men and women who 
came to America--and the face of this picture in Nevada is a woman by 
the name of Astrid Silva, who came here as a little girl with her 
mother in a boat across the Rio Grande River with her little doll and 
her rosary beads that she didn't understand--a little, little girl. She 
knew no other country. What do the Republicans want to do? They want to 
deport Astrid Silva, a woman who finally because of the courageous 
action of President Obama--because Republicans refused do anything on 
immigration--was allowed to get her driver's license, to fly in an 
airplane for the first time, to be able to go to the airport without 
fear of being arrested, and they want to do away with that. But that is 
not enough.
  Most of them want to privatize Social Security; they want to change 
it in some significant way. It is led by one President's son, one 
President's brother who basically said we have to change Medicare, as 
he was speaking to the Koch brothers.
  We are working, trying to get the Ex-Im Bank that affects the lives 
of 165,000 working Americans. Most of the Republicans want to get rid 
of that. Now the program is out of sync. It has expired.
  The environment. Don't worry about it; it is fine. The icecaps are 
melting in the Arctic. Don't worry about it. We have the worst fires in 
the history of Alaska because of climate change. Don't worry about it; 
it is only 5 million acres that burned this summer so far. The droughts 
are affecting all of America but especially the West. It is so bad in 
the West that in the Sierras there are bears that don't even hibernate 
anymore. It is not cold enough. In New Hampshire, moose are dying. 
About one-third of them are dead because of fleas and ticks. Why? 
Because it is not cold enough to kill them anymore. These little pests 
are ravaging these huge animals.
  I could go on, but I am going to stop, other than to say, in addition 
to all of that, now they are after women's health.
  I hope they understand the pretty posters and the fancy words--no 
matter how you package it--are an attack on women. Indirectly, it is an 
attack on my daughter, my wife, and my grandchildren directly. I should 
say my granddaughters directly. I have a few of them.

                          ____________________