Political Quotes

“I come to the floor to join my colleagues in opposing this misguided measure, which would leave millions of women and families with fewer healthcare options, and it would drastically decrease women's access to basic primary and preventive health services, including lifesaving cancer screenings and HIV testing. Make no mistake about it, as my colleagues have said, the primary target of this legislation is Planned Parenthood. For years now, we have seen Republican leaders in Congress attempt to defund this essential healthcare provider, which serves millions of women nationwide, including nearly 12,000 women in New Hampshire, most of them with incomes below or near the poverty line. The sad irony of these attacks is that study after study has shown that restricting access to birth control and other family planning methods actually increases the number of abortions. The authoritative Guttmacher Institute estimates that in 2014 alone, contraceptive care provided under title X helped women avert more than 900,000 unintended pregnancies and 326,000 abortions. Without contraceptive care provided by title X funded centers, the U.S. rates of unintended pregnancy and preventable abortions would be an estimated 33 percent higher, and the teen pregnancy rate would be 30 percent higher. At the end of the Obama administration, teen pregnancy in the United States was at its lowest point since we have been keeping track.…”