CRR Calls Budget Resolution a Blow to D.C. Women

(PRESS RELEASE) The Center for Reproductive Rights commends President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for heading off a government shutdown and rejecting House proposals to strip funding from essential healthcare programs. Congressional leaders reached a deal on Friday night and agreed to drop proposals that would have stripped funding from family planning services, including Planned Parenthood. However, lawmakers agreed to include a policy rider that forbids the District of Columbia from using its own money to fund abortion services. President Nancy Northup issued this statement in response:“Friday’s eleventh-hour deal is a mixed victory for women. The Center for Reproductive Rights applauds the Senate Leadership and White House for averting a government shutdown and rejecting the House majority’s efforts to strip funding from family planning services, including Title X and Planned Parenthood. Although there will be a vote in the Senate next week, we are confident that reason will prevail. Millions of women across the country rely on these programs for their basic medical needs, including contraception, screenings for high blood pressure, cancer, and diabetes, and pelvic exams. It is of the utmost importance that those services remain available.“By the same token, it is a blow to women in the District of Columbia and their city government’s right to decide what is best for them. The budget agreement strips tens of thousands of women of access to the full range of reproductive health services that they need. Every state has the authority to spend its own local tax dollars to serve its constituents – including paying for women’s abortion services. But last night’s deal takes that power from the District. Last year, D.C. residents voted to fund low-income women’s medically necessary abortions. Steamrolling over the city’s decision is both bad policy and undemocratic.“Too often in Washington, women’s health is used as the bargaining chip in political skirmishes and too often, low-income women pay the price. This certainly isn’t the first time that anti-choice lawmakers have held critical government decisions hostage as they move to dismantle women’s abortion rights. We saw this very playbook during the healthcare debate. We expect that these latest maneuvers were only a warm-up act for the future. The Center for Reproductive Rights will continue to fight for the right of all women, regardless of income, to have access to the full range of reproductive health services that they need.”