Talking Points Memo: Roe V. Wade Anniversary: Fights Over Abortion Are Often One-Sided
Nancy Northup
Politicians in the U.S. House of Representatives have already made it clear that—once again—one of their top priorities for the new year will be to continue their relentless assault on women’s health and rights.
In one of its first acts of 2014, the House Judiciary Committee considered H.R. 7, the so-called “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” the true purpose of which is to deny insurance coverage of abortion care to women across the United States — and the effect of which would be felt disproportionately by women hit hardest by difficult economic circumstances.
This bill would permanently ban abortion coverage for millions of women, including federal employees, women enrolled in Medicaid, military servicewomen, Peace Corps volunteers and many others who depend on health care and insurance coverage through the federal government.
I wish I could say this comes as some surprise. Sadly, it has become a shameful ritual that repeats itself every time Congress and state legislatures across the U.S. come back into session each year.
At the federal level, politicians hostile to women’s reproductive health care have been using the congressional purse strings to inflict pain like this for decades. And in recent years, they’ve gone beyond attacks on insurance coverage to strike at the provision of reproductive health care itself.
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