Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) voiced his vehement opposition to Restricting Women’s Access to Reproductive Health Care Services, H.R. 358, the so-called “Protect Life Act.”  This extremely regressive and misleading bill would restrict, for the first time, how women can spend their own private dollars in purchasing health insurance.  Contrary to GOP claims, this bill is unnecessary because the Hyde Amendment and the Affordable Care Act already prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions.  The bill would likely end private insurance coverage of reproductive health for millions of American women.

“The real purpose of this bill – which denies women the right to purchase insurance coverage for legal abortions with their own money – is to make it impossible for women to exercise their constitutional right to choose,” said Nadler.  “This bill is an abomination.”

The following is the text of Nadler’s statement on the House floor:

“Madam Speaker, this bill seeks to undo hard-fought constitutional rights under the guise of being about government funding for abortion. 

“Current law, unfortunately, already forbids federal funds from paying for abortions, except in the case of rape, incest, or where the woman’s life is endangered.  This bill goes well beyond that.  It would make it virtually impossible for any of the health plans offered through the health exchanges, set up as part of the Affordable Care Act, to cover abortions.  As the authors plainly intend, it would make it virtually impossible for most women to buy insurance coverage for abortions with their own money.   

“The bill would also allow a doctor or hospital to refuse to provide an abortion to a woman whose life is in imminent peril.  They could let that woman die right there in the emergency room, and the government would be powerless to do anything. 

“Mr. Speaker, I remember a time, not that long ago, when women had no options for legal abortions, and often resorted to illegal back alley abortionists.  Women were butchered.  Many died.  Others became sterile.  All because the medical care they desperately sought, and the compassion they desperately needed, was denied to them.  No woman should be treated with this contempt. 

“The real purpose of this bill – which denies women the right to purchase insurance coverage for legal abortions with their own money – is to make it impossible for women to exercise their constitutional right to choose.  This bill is an abomination. 

“I urge my colleagues to vote NO.”

                                                            ###