Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I rise today to talk about the assault on women's health that has come from a majority of our Supreme Court in recent weeks. It is unfortunate and frankly shocking that in the year 2014 we are still debating the issue of access to birth control. But here we are. Millions of Americans are looking to the Senate today and counting on us to stand for women's rights. They are counting on us to put health care back between a woman and her doctor. They are counting on us to stand for millions of Americans' access to affordable, preventive health care of every kind. They are counting on us to say that birth control is not your boss's business.

In short, they are counting on us to right this huge wrong from the Supreme Court. We have that ability to right this wrong. We have that ability here in this room. The Court, in its decision, lays out a structure in which Congress does have the power to overturn this misguided decision. The Court based its decision on an act of Congress, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Now Congress can respond. Congress can pass a new law that says: That is not what the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was meant to mean. The Court got it wrong. We are going to make it right. We should all remember that the act was set up to protect the religious choices of employees. The Supreme Court has stood that on its head.

But for us to right the wrong we have to be willing to debate. We have to be willing to go to the bill. We have to be willing to consider each other's viewpoints, listen to each other. We have to be willing to vote. But we cannot get to the bill if the majority is thwarted by a minority which uses its filibuster power in a way never envisioned in the past, never utilized until recent history, which has prevented Congress from actually debating bills.

So let's all join together and say: Wherever you stand on this issue, this issue is important enough to debate. Women's health care is important enough to debate. Access to contraceptive care is important enough to have that issue before this body. So let's all say yes to debate this bill. The bill is formally titled The Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act or, as it is commonly known, the Not My Boss's Business Act.

I hope we will all join collectively in saying this is an important issue, because it really is about women's access to fundamental health care. Whether contraceptives are used for family planning or for painful medical conditions such as endometriosis, birth control is essential health care for millions of Americans. While some are trying to say this case has nothing to do with access to birth control, that is simply not true. For most working families, affordability is access. Without insurance, birth control can cost tens of thousands of dollars over a lifetime. One-third of women in America say they have struggled with the cost of birth control at some point in their lives. For working families, getting by month to month, often paycheck to paycheck, these costs, though they might be dismissed by Washington pundits and even politicians here across the aisle, add up. They can put contraception out of reach.

A loss of insurance coverage can certainly make certain types of contraception totally unaffordable. As Justice Ginsburg noted in her dissent, the upfront cost of an IUD is equivalent to nearly a month's wages for a minimum wage worker. In the blue-collar community I live in, in working America, a month's wage is a very big deal.

Not having insurance coverage equals not having access. Although our Republican colleagues would have you believe otherwise, this dangerous precedent could apply to all sorts of basic, essential health care. What is to stop a boss from claiming a religious objection to vaccinations under the theory espoused in this decision or from access to a blood transfusion or to surgery or to HIV and AIDS, because all of those fit the same pattern in that various religions have a strong religious objection to those health care benefits.

I am not sure what is more troubling, the path charted by five Justices that allows a boss to trump essential personal, preventive health care choices or the Court's notion that it is okay to single out women's health care in this decision.

The bottom line is this: The bill before us that we would go to on the vote this afternoon, the Murray-Udall bill, is about putting women back in charge of their own health care. Women do not want politicians interfering in their health care. They certainly do not want their bosses and CEOs interfering in their health care. Bosses belong in the boardroom. They do not belong in employees' bedrooms or their exam rooms. Let's send a message to all Americans who are watching this body, this great deliberative body today, that the Senate is listening, that we hear the concerns of millions of women across this land and that we are ready to put women back in charge of their own health care and get the bosses out of the exam rooms.

I urge my colleagues to join in voting yes to open debate on this bill.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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