On the recordJuly 31, 2012
I thank the chairman and the chairman of the subcommittee for the hearings that they held that exposed this bill for what it does to reproductive choice in our country unconstitutionally on two scores, because it targets also the District of Columbia and therefore separates us out, we who live in the District of Columbia, in violation of the 14th Amendment for treatment differently from women who live just across the river in one part of our country, or in any part of our country. Mr. Speaker, this is the first time in our history that a standalone bill has come to the floor to deny the residents of the Nation's Capital the same constitutional rights as other Americans. We won't stand for it. Yet the folks behind this bill care nothing about the District of Columbia. They have picked on the District to get a phony Federal imprimatur on a bill that targets Roe v. Wade. In the process, they have picked a fight they do not want and cannot win with pro- choice America. Bills based on pain or principle would not target only one city that has no vote on a bill that involves only the residents of that city. Women have blown the cover from a bill with a D.C. label because they know an attack on their reproductive health when they see it. Republicans have taken the gloves off. No one can any longer doubt that the war on women is on, even when it is by proxy as with this bill, infiltrating the Susan G.…
