David Skaggs: “Mr. Chairman, many in the new majority seem determined to do anything they possibly can to interfere with a woman's…”

“Mr. Chairman, many in the new majority seem determined to do anything they possibly can to interfere with a woman's privacy rights and freedom of choice about abortion. They even want to turn this bill into a battleground on that issue. This bill should be about defending the country, not making war on a woman's right to choose. Mr. Chairman, we will soon be taking up the DeLauro amendment, which would protect the rights of U.S. servicewomen abroad by allowing them to exercise the same constitutional rights available to women here at home. I ask my colleagues to support it. I ask them in the strongest possible terms. It is ironic, I think, that when we ask members of the U.S. Armed Forces serving abroad, women members of the Armed Forces to defend this country and its Constitution, we at the same time, if the language in the bill is retained, deny them the fundamental rights accorded every other woman in this society under the very Constitution they are being asked to defend. Of all people for us to single out, of all the people to deny the fundamental protections of the Constitution, rights to privacy and freedom of choice, we certainly should not be doing it to those women in uniform willing to risk their lives to defend this country and the rest of us. Mr. Chairman, I urge the majority in this body to leave these soldiers alone.”