Stupak Amendment

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in objection to the Stupak-Pitts amendment that was added to our Affordable Health Care for America Act 1 month ago. It represents an overreach that denies women the right to buy abortion coverage with their own money. It will eventually deny all but the wealthiest women in America access to reproductive choice.

Were it up to me and many of my colleagues on both sides of this issue, abortion would never have intruded into our health care debate like this. But sadly, the Conference of Catholic Bishops had other ideas. They chose to hold comprehensive health care reform hostage to the abortion issue. They lobbied for this legislation in a manner that was unbecoming to our faith, and in doing so, they failed their obligation to help the poor and heal the sick.

Nonetheless, I'm heartened to see that, yesterday, our colleagues in the other body rejected a similarly overreaching amendment. I hope that we will get back to a common ground approach when it returns from conference. America's women need a health care bill that ends discrimination against them, not encodes it ever further into our system of law.

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