Reproductive Rights

The contrast couldn’t be more striking.

Today, the Senate is expected to address the most urgent deficit facing this country: the jobs deficit. Senators will vote tonight on the President’s plan to put people back to work and get the economy moving again. The plan would keep teachers and first responders on the job, invest in rebuilding our nation's infrastructure, provide job training, create incentives to hire the long-term unemployed, provide help for disadvantaged workers, extend emergency unemployment benefits, and prohibit discrimination against jobless workers.   Read more »

Tomorrow marks the 35^th anniversary of the original passage of the Hyde amendment. The Hyde amendment, as you may know, prohibits the use of federal funding for abortion services. This amendment has been attached as a rider to appropriations bills each year since its original passage. So while it is not permanent law, it has been the reality for 35 consecutive years, and has altered the landscape on which we battle for access to reproductive health care. Read more »

Let’s review some facts.

According to the latest Census Bureau data, there are record numbers of poor women and children nationally, and widespread poverty and insecurity in the states. In Florida, 15.8 percent of women are poor. Women working full time, year round in Florida are paid 80 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. 9.7 percent of women in Florida are unemployed. And 27.0 percent of women in Florida were uninsured.

So what is one Florida Congressman doing about it? Absolutely nothing. Read more »

Today, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held its first business meeting of the year to consider H.R. Read more »

This week, a firestorm erupted  over efforts by anti-choice members of Congress to narrow the long-standing “rape” exception to the ban on the use of federal funds for abortion.  Hailed by Speaker John Boehner as one of the top priorities for the new Congress, H.R. Read more »