Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4719, Fighting Hunger Incentive Act of 2014
Floor Speech
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Mr. BERA of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to this body about the outrageous Supreme Court decision, the Hobby Lobby case.
I look at this, not as a Member of Congress, but as a doctor. Now, in my training, we took an oath. That oath was to put our patients first, to do good.
My core job as a doctor is to sit with my patients, answer her questions, talk about the risks and benefits and the various options that are available, but then to empower my patients to make the decisions that best fit their lives.
To women, there is no greater decision than when to start a family, when to become a mother, and that is why protecting those reproductive rights and reproductive options are so important. That is core to our oath as physicians, and that is why the Supreme Court's decision on Hobby Lobby was so outrageous.
We have got to fight against this encroachment of the government or the Justices in the Supreme Court coming into my exam room and getting between me and my patients. That is outrageous. It is an affront to individual liberties. It is an affront to what we do as doctors.
It is not just me speaking. This is doctors all across America. The American Congress of OB/GYNs calls this ruling outrageous.
We need to have all options available. But what am I to do now if a Hobby Lobby employee comes to me as a patient, sits down and says: You know, I am not ready to start a family at this juncture. I would like to know what my contraceptive options are; I would like to know what some of the safest methods are.
Well, IUDs often are 20 times more effective and are extremely safe, but the Supreme Court has now made that option unavailable for me. They didn't go to medical school. I did. As a doctor, it is my oath to provide all those options.
Now, others might say, well, that patient can still choose to get it. The reason people have health insurance is because they want to have health care available when it is necessary. What if that patient can't afford that health care option? For many patients, hourly workers, often contraception can cost up to $600 a year. They are not able to afford it. That is why this is such an outrageous decision. We have got to keep the government and the Supreme Court out of our exam room.
And it is even more personal than that. I am a husband and I am a father. I want my daughter to grow up in a country where she is in control of her health care decisions, where she is in control of her body.
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