Mara Gandal-Powers, Fellow

You’ve probably seen the photo by now of the witness panel at yesterday morning’s House hearing entitled “Lines Crossed: Separation of Church & State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion?” What you may not be able to tell immediately by looking at this photo is that there is no witness to represent the House minority viewpoint. What is immediately obvious is that there were no female witnesses on that panel. But, I was there to witness it and I am here to testify.

From the title and from Chairman Issa’s opening statement, you would have thought that this was a hearing on freedom of religion. But from the start, it wasn’t. The Chairman rejected the minority’s witness, Sandra Fluke, a third-year law student at Georgetown University who was going to testify about experiences of students who don’t have contraceptive coverage. Rep. Issa said that he wanted only the most “qualified” clergy and lay people to discuss the issue of religious freedom. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and Rep. Carolyn Maloney walked out on the hearing, furious that Chairman Issa wouldn’t allow them to have a witness.

Then, it was time for that all-male panel you’ve seen in the picture to give their opening statements. What did they say? Bishop Lori compared requiring preventive health services, including birth control, to requiring Kosher delis to serve ham sandwiches.

Last February, the Department of Health and Human Services released an interim final rule stating that student health plans would be treated as individual health insurance plans, meaning that they would have to cover the women’s preventive health services. Let’s translate that out of “legal-ese:” the Department will require student health insurance plans (not student health centers) to cover preventive services for women, such as contraception, screening for sexually transmitted infections, and screening for interpersonal and domestic violence, without co-pays or deductibles.