Steny Hoyer: “Mr. Speaker, last time I checked, it was 1998. But, frankly, as far as I am concerned today, it might as well be 1918…”

“Mr. Speaker, last time I checked, it was 1998. But, frankly, as far as I am concerned today, it might as well be 1918 when Margaret Sanger went to prison for smuggling diaphragms to women. This is a very sad day for American women. A proposal to provide birth control, birth control, not abortion, a proposal which passed both the House and Senate has now fallen to the demands of the Christian Coalition and the radical right. Denying access to contraception for Federal employees is just a small step in the systemic efforts by the radical right to eradicate, not just a woman's right to abortion, but a woman's right to birth control, to reproductive health. First, it is denying insurance coverage for contraception, then it is outlawing FDA approval of contraception, then criminalizing grandparents for taking teens across State lines for abortion. On and on and on are attempts to both reverse Roe versus Wade and then remove a woman's right to reproductive choice. I think that we need to tell the tens of thousands of Federal employees in this country and their families that this Congress will stop playing God and do what the American people have elected us to do. We have no business in America's bedrooms.”