Barbara Boxer: “a couple of us are going to come down to the floor and talk about an action that was taken in the House yesterday. With…”

“a couple of us are going to come down to the floor and talk about an action that was taken in the House yesterday. With all the issues we have to confront--whether it is continuing this economic recovery and job creation; dealing with immigration, as we are trying to do in the Senate; dealing with going to conference on the budget, which Chairman Murray has been pushing for day after day after day--one would think the House would take up one of those matters. But instead what do they do? They take up an extreme anti-choice bill. Clearly, House Republicans have learned no lessons from last year, when voters resoundingly rejected their efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, restrict women's access to birth control, and slash preventive care for women and families. So the debate they had in the House yesterday echoes of last year, when Republicans talked about ``legitimate rape'' or a pregnancy from rape as a ``gift from God.'' In fact, the Republican sponsor of this bill said the incidence of pregnancy from rape was ``very low''--an assertion that is flatly contradicted by the facts. I see my colleague Senator Murray is here, and I would just pause and ask her through the Chair if she needs to speak first.”