OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2017

Floor Speech

Date: Sept. 28, 2016
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Women Health and Health Care

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Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership and for joining me in pushing for us to reach the point that we have, where we now have not all the funding we need, but $1.1 billion to finally fight the Zika virus without also fighting the political weight that had weighed it down for many, many months.

While I rise today in support of the fiscal year 2017 continuing resolution, I also rise to express my significant objections to the delay in bringing this bill to the floor with funds to attack the Zika virus.

In south Florida, we have waited more than 7 months for congressional Republicans to drop their political games and approve funding to stop the spread of the Zika virus. South Florida, as many probably know by now, is the epicenter for this virus. And yesterday, the Florida Department of Health confirmed its 900th case of the Zika virus.

Despite this hefty toll, Congressional Republicans repeatedly put partisan politics before women's health care and inserted a provision in the Zika bills that would have cut off funding for Planned Parenthood. My Republican colleagues spent much of the past 9 months firm in their belief that the most appropriate response to a virus that overwhelmingly affects pregnant women was to place a politically motivated ban on funding for reproductive health care, and that was unacceptable. This is shameful conduct that hurt women all across Florida and Puerto Rico.

And while some may praise today's agreement as a breakthrough and the end of our action on Zika, I must warn my colleagues that the mosquitos that carry the Zika virus do not know if they are biting a Republican or a Democrat, they don't know whether they are in Florida or Georgia or Michigan or Louisiana or any other State, or whether Congress has passed an eleventh-hour stopgap funding bill. They simply bite you and infect you with Zika. And because of that risk, our work in defeating this virus is far from over. We must drop the politics and stop playing politics with women's health.

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