Contraception

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. DeLAURO. As both a Catholic and an advocate of women's health, I believe that these guidelines strike the necessary balance between increasing access to health care services for women while respecting the religious beliefs of all Americans.

These guidelines are based on recommendations from the Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit, independent organization that is grounded and rooted in science. They have recommended that women have access to a wide range of services, such as screening and counseling for domestic violence, that pregnant women have access to services such as a screening for gestational diabetes, that women have access to at least one well-woman preventive care visit a year, and that all women have access to a range of contraceptive services, counseling, and methods.

Let me be clear: The Catholic Church and its employees are exempt from these guidelines. They apply only to church institutions that serve the larger community, employ people of different faiths on a nonreligious basis, and do not meet the clear requirements for a religious exemption. There are thousands of non-Catholics who work in Catholic hospitals and in Catholic universities.

Improved access to birth control is directly linked to declines in maternal and infant mortality and helps to reduce unintended pregnancies.

That is why 28 States, including Connecticut, already mandate the coverage of contraceptive service and why many private employers already cover these services.

I'm proud to support what I believe to be a moral decision by the administration and a well-drafted compromise that maintains the existing Federal conscience protections and at the same time allows women access to contraceptive service and other preventive health care services without mandating in terms of contraceptive services that one use it or be required to dispense it.

I would like now to yield to my colleague from Washington, DC, the Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton.

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