Conscience Protection Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Colorado for yielding and for all her work in this area.

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today would allow a woman's boss to decide what type of medical care she is allowed to access.

Republicans are telling us that it is not up to a woman to consult her doctor or her family or her own faith--that she needs to consult with her boss when it comes to her personal, private, and constitutionally protected medical decisions.

Here we are in the midst of unprecedented public health emergencies-- nearly 50 American women diagnosed with Zika every single day, a dangerously underfunded opioid response program, no relief for the families of Flint, Michigan, and the worst gun massacre in our country's history--and this is the Republican majority's priority?

The response to these emergencies is wrapping themselves in religious liberty when religious objections are already protected under our current laws, as they should be, and, instead, insert themselves into a woman's most private medical decisions.

This is no way to govern. I know it, the majority knows it, and the American people are going to remember it.

This so-called Conscience Protection Act is ironically titled because I cannot imagine a more blatant admission of this Congress' crisis of conscience. With 91 people dying every day by guns, with the threat of Zika to unborn babies unanswered and unfunded, with 125 deaths from opioids every day in this country, this bill is an abject rejection of conscience. If anyone needs their conscience protected, it is the Republicans in Congress who think this is what we should be dealing with right now.

My question to my colleagues is this: How does your conscience feel when you remain silent in the face of such tragedy and public health threats?

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