Joe Pitts: “I rise today to share another tragic story of human rights violations abroad, this time in the country of Honduras. For…”

“I rise today to share another tragic story of human rights violations abroad, this time in the country of Honduras. For more than 34 years and with millions of dollars, women of Honduras have been victims of an overzealous population control movement. They have been subjected to sterilizations and mass contraceptive pill distribution without caution or required exams or information, funded entirely by U.S. taxpayers. Mr. Speaker, now we find that these Honduran women have been the subjects of a human experiment, this time with the Ovrette contraceptive pill, which has been used without any information about its potential side effects to the women taking the pill. Instead of warning women that the effects of the pill were undetermined and that it should not be taken while breast-feeding, the USAID-led effort chose to strongly push the use of the pill among the women. At the same time, the government decided to monitor unsuspecting women to see what the effects of Ovrette might be. To make matters worse, while this was going on, Ovrette was not even registered with the proper authorities, as is the law. Mr. Speaker, this would not take place in America. It should stop in Honduras.”