Jerry Nadler: “What I want to focus on is a major policy change that has been referred to by several other speakers, the so-called…”

“What I want to focus on is a major policy change that has been referred to by several other speakers, the so-called Weldon gag rule. This Federal refusal clause would allow not just hospitals but insurance companies, HMOs, to order their doctors not to perform abortions, not to refer people to abortions, not to tell people about abortion as an option. So whose conscience are we protecting? The board of directors of the insurance company? The doctors? The patients? This is an outrage, because it will mean that women who want to have abortions, that women who might want to have abortions, that doctors who think they ought to tell women about their options are told to shut up. By Federal law they cannot do this, because we care about limiting access to a constitutional right, because that is the real purpose of this.”