Talk about handing the Dems a made-for-the-election issue. This is just out from U.S. Rep and senate candidate Chris Murphy. I’m sure Rep. Issa will jump right on it …
March 1, 2012
The Honorable Darrell Issa
Chairman
Oversight and Government Reform Committee
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Issa,
On February 16th you held a hearing entitled, “Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?” While the hearing was a result of the Administration’s recent rule regarding women’s access to contraceptives, women and women’s health were far from the focus. In fact, you, Subcommittee Chairman Lankford, and other Republican members, repeatedly stated that the hearing, and the issue at hand, was not about women’s health and contraception, but instead about religious freedom. We contend that women’s health is indeed at the center of this issue, and therefore request you convene a second hearing that focuses on how the new regulation will impact women, from the perspective of women.
The viewpoint of religious leaders and affiliates is certainly important in discussing the Department of Health and Human Service’s regulation regarding preventive health services for women, including birth control. That is why we are glad that we were able to hear that perspective during the hearing. Yet, that was the only perspective we heard. While the Majority had nine witnesses, of which only two were women, the Minority was denied even one. We invited third-year Georgetown University Law Center student Sandra Fluke to discuss the repercussions that denying coverage for contraceptive would have on women. Yet, you shut her out citing that, as relayed by your staff, “…the hearing is not about reproductive rights and contraception but instead about the Administration’s actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience….”
Not only was the dissenting voice of Ms. Fluke stifled from being heard, but so was a representational voice of all women. While women make up over 50% of our population, 99% of which have used contraceptives at one point in their lives, only two of the ten witnesses who testified were women. Instead, the committee spent the day questioning a predominately male witness panel about a critical issue to women’s health – access to birth control. Representative Lankford’s untrue contention that “women’s health is not the issue….and that contraceptives are available for free all around the country,” only highlights the need to bring women’s voices to this issue.
Birth control has been revolutionary for women. The ability to plan one’s family and other health benefits of birth control are crucial aspects of gender equality and economic empowerment of women. Yet, in 2012 women are still being marginalized from debate concerning their own lives. Even worse, there is failure here on the behalf of the Republican members of this committee to even acknowledge that women, not just religious beliefs, are what this debate is and should be about.
Again, we urge you to expeditiously schedule a hearing regarding the other side of this issue – women’s health. It should go without saying that, unlike what we saw earlier this month, such a hearing should include both Majority and Minority witnesses and better reflect the demographic most affected by this new rule: women.
Thank you for your consideration of this request.
Sincerely,
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY
CAROLYN B. MALONEY
Member of Congress Member of Congress
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10 Responses to Murphy Wants Contraception Hearings
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George Robert Stephanopoulos, the poster boy for the sinister alliance between lazy media and the Democratic Party, did as ordered and unwrapped the latest Democratic Party wedge issue at a recent Republican presidential debate. The usual liberal tactics can’t rescue the Party from the President’s BIG drag on the Democrats’ poll numbers.
Chris Murphy has finally been dumped from the 5th CD. Murphy is one of the worst impediments to reign-back runaway fuel prices. He’s trying to change the subject from what’s really important to Connecticut voters. Don’t let him fool us again! We never got to vote AGAINST Chris Dodd! We’ve got a chance this year to vote against Chris Dodd Junior.
Watching Fox and MSNBC this week was funny.
Completely different reactions to the same woman’s testimony
Sandra Fluke, the young Georgetown female law student, testified that the contraception directive will save her $3,000 while in law school. If not passed she’ll need bigger loans and may need to take a year off.
On MSNBC there was all sorts of tsk..tsk..tsk…. What more evidence do you need that this provision is a necessity and a long time coming?
On Fox it was the source of ridicule as in “Make the guy wear cheap latex condoms” and “Practice abstinence and non-invasive sex” and “Don’t major in constitutional law”. And yes the women estimates the government would save her boyfriend over $1,000 a year too which led to “Air-Diddy Lambskin Condoms” courtesy of the Obama administration.
I wanted to kick her in the butt and tell her to get lost. $2,000 a year so she can have sex with sheepskin condoms and branded Yasmin instead of generic condoms and pills. But that’s oppressive, social conservative me. YMMV.
That’s without getting into the abortion parts of women’s “health care”. Santorum’s got that covered with the whole “women offering their children as burnt offerings and holocaust to Moloch via the medical waste incinerators of the abortion industry”.
Where’s Alan Ginsburg when you need him?
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old
men weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the crossbone soulless jail house and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money!
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness
without a body!
Murphy is a joke and has no right to run for senator. As for the flake, Fluke, she needs to be shaken by the collar. I am NOT paying for her promiscuity. Own up to your irresponsible behavior you flake. This is America and we are sick and tired of these idiots wanting more entitlements. The world will be better off if Murphy and Fluke would both shut their pieholes. Enough of these liberals.
Religious people define “freedom of religion” as “freedom for us to run everyone else’s lives for them, according to the strictures of our own beliefs, regardless of whatever they may happen to believe.” One of their religious beliefs is that they are entitled to run the planet … hence, anyone who tells them to keep to themselves, is by definition trampling their “religious freedom.”
Yes, it’s all very childish. But it’s religion, so we’re all required to accept and embrace it, and just submit to their demands. Right? Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?
I invite anyone who thinks I am required to live according to his/her religious beliefs, to make me do so. It won’t work, but they’re all cordially invited to give it their best shot. Go right ahead. Lock and load.
Perhaps they are thinking of the dignity of women.
There are those who prefer the image of women as an animal in heat, incapable of rational decision making when approached for sex. A woman in heat can’t pay for condoms or pills, can’t say no, can’t practice non-invasive sex or safe sex or abstinence. A woman in heat needs to be protected from herself like a poor dumb animal. Unless government pays to make women sterile and safe for unrestricted sex they will simply breed like rabbits.
Did I miss something about women and reproductive rights under the ObamaCare directive? Did I miss the bits about human dignity and personal responsibility?
Nonsense, even well written, is still nonsense
It’s a lot cheaper to encourage the use of no-charge contraceptions than to bring up unwanted babies. By the way, the out-of-wedlock birthrate in Hartford is 80%, and all taxpayers are paying plenty for that.
Halprin-
What are you referring to when you reference “no-charge contraception?” Does contraception grow on trees? Can it be harvested as easily as the rain? I do believe that a company needs to manufacture contraception, whether it is condoms or pills. These companies have workers, that need to be paid, and the materials to make the contraception needs to be bought. There is no such thing as “free.” Nobody should have to work and pay taxes just so Sandra Fluke and her boyfriend can have financially-responsible-free sex.
Leave it to Chris Murphy to create an issue where there is none. I’m sure he’ll do his best to carry the misinformation forward in an effort to scare women into believing that an issue actually exists…..let’s make sure he never makes it to the senate….he’s a disgrace to Connecticut
Sharpshooter: As usual, you hit the bullseye!