Audience members packed into Wednesday's Health subcommittee hearing on the Protect Life Act, filling all the seats and lining the back wall. (Photo by Rebecca Cohen / Medill News Service)
Not the usual scene at a House subcommittee hearing.
Both H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act, and H.R. 358, the Protect Life Act, have drawn fire from women’s rights advocates, who charge their sponsors with jeopardizing women’s health and autonomy. The Judiciary subcommittee discussed H.R. 3 Tuesday, and the Health subcommittee debated H.R. 358 Wednesday.
Federal funding of abortions is currently banned under the Hyde Amendment, which must be renewed every year. However, H.R. 3 would codify the ban and expand it to prohibit tax credits for health care plans that cover abortion, while H.R. 358 would eliminate the Hyde Amendment’s exception for pregnancies that endanger the woman’s life.
“Republicans ran on the promise of small government, but in fact it looks as though they want to reduce the size of government to make it just small enough that it can fit in our bedrooms,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., at the Health subcommittee hearing.
Opponents of H.R. 3 say it also seeks to limit an exemption for rape included in the Hyde Amendment. H.R. 3 refers only to “forcible rape,” which women’s rights advocates say burdens rape victims with the task of proving they were assaulted.
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., the Judiciary Subcommittee chairman, said H.R. 3 reflects the nation’s conscience. He said its sponsors are in the process of amending its language to ensure the definition of rape is not changed.
“We are beginning to realize as Americans we are somehow bigger than on-demand abortion, and that 50 million dead children is enough,” Franks said.
But Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., accused the bill’s supporters of having made an underhanded attack on women’s rights.
“What does this provision in the first place say about the mindset and intent of the sponsors of this bill?” Nadler asked.
H.R. 3 would protect the rights of health care providers who opt not to perform abortions, said Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He cited the case of a New York nurse who was forced to collect the pieces of an aborted fetus and received no redress for the nightmares she suffered afterwards.
Regardless of the bill’s moral implications, it would be problematic from a tax perspective, said Sara Rosenbaum, chair of the Department of Health at George Washington University. It would place the responsibility of defining rape, incest and other terms with the Internal Revenue Service and would result in complicated tax provisions.
Speakers at Wednesday’s hearing on H.R. 358 repeated many points raised at the Tuesday hearing on H.R. 3. Rosenbaum, who testified at both hearings, said H.R. 358 would present tax issues as well, and Helen Alvare, a law professor at George Mason University, seconded Doerflinger’s concerns about the rights of health care providers.
Both hearings drew more audience members than could fit in the hearing rooms’ chairs. The crowd at Tuesday’s hearing spilled over into a second viewing room, where pro-choice protesters in purple “Won’t Go Back to the Back Alley” shirts jeered as they watched the bill’s supporters speak. At Wednesday’s hearing, viewers stood along the walls.
Capitol police also expelled 11 DC Vote activists from Wednesday’s hearing for donning red gags and refusing to sit down. H.R. 3 would ban taxpayer-funded abortions in the District, which the protesters called an unfair limitation of the city’s rights.
