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Conscience Protection Act of 2016

Floor Speech

Date: July 13, 2016
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Women Health and Health Care Reproduction

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, let's talk about conscience and whose conscience should prevail in a decision about what a woman does with her body and who makes that decision.

Is it the conscience of an insurance company?

That is already in the law.

Is it the conscience of her boss who makes the decision?

Clearly, it is not the consciences of American women in this piece of legislation. The bottom line is it sounds to me like it is the conscience of Republican politicians who want to tell the women of America what they can do with their bodies.

Let's be very clear. Right now, current law says that hospitals, insurers, and doctors may refuse to perform an abortion or to provide coverage for abortion, which already greatly limits women's access to legal procedures. This bill would further extend the dangerous law by allowing health plan sponsors--that means employers--to deny female employees access to legal medical services because the boss has a moral objection to it, not the woman who is making the most personal of decisions here.

Women and their doctors, not their bosses, should be making medical decisions, and no outsider should be able to decide something as important as the size or the timing of having a family; and a woman's access to reproductive health should not be dependent on where she works or on where she goes to school.

Even more importantly, when a woman's health is in danger, providers would not be required to act to protect the health of that mother. This bill would allow them--and this is in the new language--to refuse to facilitate or to make arrangements for an abortion if they have a moral objection to it. For example, a Catholic hospital could force a doctor to withhold information about a patient's medical condition or options if that information might facilitate a woman's obtaining an abortion. It could also refuse to provide transportation to another hospital for a woman who is in distress if that hospital provides abortions.

This takes away a woman's right of conscience, and we should be voting ``no.''

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