As you probably know, the Obama administration has been working on a new contraception rule since last summer that would force insurance companies to pay for birth control and other drugs that can cause abortions for women, failing to exempt religiously affiliated employers from having to include such measures in their employees’ insurance coverage.
Discussions are now underway in the House to address this proposed piece of Obamacare legislation, and the latest contentious hearing on birth control took place last Thursday. The meeting culminated in a bold walkout of Democratic lawmakers.
The hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was on religious liberty and birth control. The lawmakers who chose to leave the hearings did so in protest of Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) refusal to permit the Democrat’s female witness, Sandra Fluke (a Georgetown University law student), to testify in favor of the Obama administration’s contraception rule, stating that she was “not appropriate or qualified.”
This alone may not have motivated Democrats to walk out of the hearings. However, the hearing’s morning panel consisted exclusively of men from conservative religious organizations, and a later second panel included only two women, both of which were critics of Obama’s birth control mandate. This combination of factors proved sufficient to render several Democratic congresswomen fuming.
In an email sent out later last Thursday by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee leader, Nancy Pelosi said: “We almost couldn’t believe it. Today, at a House Oversight Committee hearing, House Republicans convened a panel denying access to birth control coverage with five men and no women. As my colleague Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney asked, where are the women?”
Where, indeed. In a governmental system that places importance on—so-to-speak—“no taxation without representation,” it seems counterintuitive to convene a hearing on women’s issues without consulting any of the women affected by these issues.
In that same email, Pelosi urged supporters to sign a petition demanding the House Republican leaders to provide women a voice in Hill discussions on women’s health issues. As of Friday morning, 95,168 people had signed the petition, surpassing Pelosi’s request to gather 50,000 signatures before the end of Congress’ Friday session. With such support, we can only hope that women will be consulted on issues pertaining to their own lives in the context of these continuing hearings.
As Barnard and Columbia women, we are accustomed to taking a stand on issues that hit close to home, and the debate on birth control shouldn’t be any different. We speak out on issues that we feel passionate about—last semester, for instance, many Barnard women spoke out on the college’s new, controversial policies which prevents students from paying part time tuition. The debate on Obama’s new birth control policies and the House’s hearings might be the next hot topic on campus. We have a clear, strong voice when we choose to use it—and use it, now, we should.