Lois Capps: “I thank my colleague for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this bill and to the political…”

“I thank my colleague for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this bill and to the political gamesmanship that continues to put our Nation at risk. Today we witness yet another attack by some of our colleagues who are obsessed with ending access to Planned Parenthood, a trusted healthcare provider in my community. But today's bill takes a slightly different approach, one that cynically tells a woman that the government knows better than she does when it comes to telling her who she should trust with her health and well-being. As a woman, a mother, and a nurse, this is insulting. These attacks have to stop. Republicans are willfully putting their heads in the sand. They think it is no big deal to shut down hundreds of clinics offering essential services not available anywhere else; they think that the rest of the safety net can easily pick up the slack, ignoring the fact that those providers themselves have said they cannot; and they think it is worth shutting down the government to achieve this goal. Moreover, I would just like to emphasize that these women have chosen to go to Planned Parenthood for their care. Suggesting that they can just get their care from some other provider is both callous and condescending. With all due respect to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, which provider a woman chooses to go to for her own reproductive health care is not your decision to make--at least, it shouldn't be.…”