his recent moves to limit women's access to birth control. Below are the Leader’s remarks:Leader Pelosi. Good morning! Good morning, Zadie. You are an inspiration to everything we do here. As I say to young kids when they come, as you look around Washington you see statues and monuments and memorials to our past which we revere, but our work is about the future – it’s about Zadie and an important part of that is how women participate in the future.
What the President did is such a sign of disrespect to women, their judgement and their determining the size and time of their family or if they chose to have a family. I have five children. When I took my baby home from the hospital, my fifth child, my oldest child was turning six that week – that week. God had blessed us, it was glorious and the rest. That doesn’t mean that is the way it should go for anybody else. Women and families should have that determination.
The hypocrisy and inconsistency of it all. Do they not know what is going on in their own households? I mean, really?
So, again, I thank [Congresswoman] Diana DeGette and I thank all of our colleagues here. The legislation to Protect Access to Birth Control Act takes a strong step towards the mission of respecting women. I thank Alice and Alicia for the courage to tell your stories.
With its new rules, the White House reached into the lives of hundreds of thousands of women and I told my own story because – I say to them – any of you have had five children in six years, you step up and talk to me.
The President overruled women’s right to basic preventive health care and then forced them to pay for the cost. No woman should be made to choose between obtaining contraceptives and paying for groceries, utilities and other daily needs. No woman should be subject to the whims of her employer for access to affordable preventative care that is her right.
The Trump Administration’s cruel decision put the White House’s contempt for women to a new low. From the start, the Trump Administration has shown its disrespect for women – attacking Title IX, rolling back protections for survivors of sexual assault and pushing the monstrous Trumpcare plan that would rip away the woman’s control of her own care.
We will fight – Democrats will fight and hopefully Republicans will join us – any of them who are having access to contraception, birth control or family planning – to repeal the White House rules and we will fight to pass the Protect Access to Birth Control Act.
My sisters in the Congress, joined by many of our brothers – Dr. Bera – this, for us, is a value, this is not an issue, it is a value, it is about the personal respect we have for women, for men, for families and their planning. This is just outrageous what the President has done and women across the country need to know that it is about their choice, not their bosses’ choice or their employers’ choice.
With that, I am pleased to yield to the co-chair of our [Pro-Choice Caucus], Congresswoman Louise Slaughter who has been a champion for many, many years.
Source: House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi
