House Passes Unprecedented Attack on Women’s Access to Abortion Care

Today, I released a statement on the House of Representatives’ passage of H.R. 3:

Today, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3, the so-called “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.” This bill, authored by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), would prevent millions of American women from obtaining private insurance coverage for abortion care even if they pay with their own funds. It would also deny abortion coverage for vulnerable women who depend on the federal government for their health care, permanently ban Washington DC from using its own funds to provide abortion care, and put IRS agents into the business of investigating women’s private medical decisions.

This bill and its history strip away any pretense that Chris Smith and his anti-choice colleagues have any concern about women and their health care needs. If Smith and his co-sponsors had succeeded in passing their original bill, they would have also redefined rape and incest and prohibited abortion care for women in life-threatening, emergency situations at public hospitals. Although Smith said he would give up the rape and incest provisions after weeks of public outcry, the bill’s sponsors have made a backdoor attempt to redefine rape as “forcible” rape in the Judiciary Committee’s report.

This isn’t the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” it is the “No Dignity or Abortion Care for Women Act.”

We call upon the Senate to stop this unprecedented attack on women’s access to abortion care. Although we don’t expect this bill to make it to the President’s desk, we thank the President for making it clear that he opposes H.R. 3.