Pro-Choice Caucus Co-Chairs Decry GOP Efforts to Weaponize Process, Ban Abortion in Must-Pass Budget Bills
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Representative Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), Co-Chairs of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, released the following statement:
“Here we go again. Instead of advancing a budget that reflects our constituents’ values and priorities, House Republicans have hijacked this year’s appropriations process to advance their own extreme agenda. Once again, the GOP majority in the House is preparing to further restrict women’s right to abortion care and are using must-pass appropriation bills to move this country closer to their overall goal of a full, nationwide ban on abortion care.
“By banning the VA from providing abortion care to veterans, the GOP is putting countless Americans’ lives at risk. By denying patients access to mifepristone, they are taking away the only remaining avenue that many women have to access the care they need.
“If the GOP wants to enact a nationwide ban on abortion care, then let’s have that debate and let’s hold that vote – but let’s do it in the open, so the American people can judge each member’s action for themselves. Hijacking these critical funding bills to try to sneak through an extreme anti-abortion agenda that a vast majority of Americans oppose is reprehensible. House Republicans should be ashamed of themselves.”
The must-pass spending bills for Fiscal Year 2024 released to date by House Republicans include over a dozen new policy riders attacking abortion rights, contraception, and women’s health care. These riders include abortion restrictions impacting servicemembers, veterans, low-income people, and immigrants; attempts to roll back FDA policy governing the abortion medication mifepristone; provisions to block funding for Planned Parenthood, Title X, UNFPA, and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program; and attempts to block lawsuits against state or local governments over abortion laws. The bills also contain long-standing, harmful policy riders, including the Weldon and Hyde Amendments.