For years, Republicans have attacked women's health care policy every chance they have gotten. They’ve voted against protecting domestic violence victims from being denied health insurance. They’ve voted to allow insurance companies to deny us coverage for life-saving mammograms. They’ve voted to deny our children basic health coverage. They’ve voted against giving women needed time off after having a child. If you've been in Washington, D.C. long enough, you start to expect this kind of behavior from a party whose caucus is 90% male.
In my years in the labor movement, I’ve seen firsthand how women get silenced or sidelined in the workplace. And I’m certainly not unfamiliar with the way male egos can occasionally get in the way of good policy. I’ve watched women fight twice as hard as men to make their voices heard in negotiations and I’ve stood by my sisters as they held out for contract provisions that truly support a family.
Despite years of witnessing what women put up with in the workplace, who knew a few Republican Congressmen could still surprise me.
As the House of Representatives began debate on their historic health insurance reform bill, Democratic women elected to represent districts all over this nation came to the floor of the Chamber to speak out against insurance companies’ continued discrimination against women. And as these elected representatives such as Rep. Lois Capps, RN (D-CA) used their voices to raise an issue that affects more than 50% of the US population, six Republicans — led by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) — repeatedly talked over them, screamed, and shouted screeds like “I object, I object, I object, I object, I object.”
Based on their record, maybe there was no reason to be surprised. But as the Chamber weighed the passage of real health insurance reform that would stop insurance companies from charging women more and denying us coverage because of “pre-existing conditions” such as rape, C-Sections, or domestic violence, it’s hard to forget the image of Republican men screaming, “I OBJECT!”
It was a defining moment, followed by 11 hours of more of the same, including the Stupak-Pitts amendment forcing Members to either kill reform or strip women of our reproductive rights. And while much of the focus has been on the Democrats who voted for the amendment - and for good reason - it must be remembered that every single Republican member of the U.S. House voted to curtail women’s freedom, except for the one guy who voted “present.”
No one here is suggesting that all Republicans are on a single-minded campaign to destroy women’s health. However,
one has to wonder if that’s a Party with room for us.
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