Congressional Republicans Believe Women Shouldn't Have Any Say On Contraception

In their effort to appease social conservatives, who make up a large portion of their party's base of voters, congressional Republicans have long tried to keep women in a second-class status in our society. They have opposed equal pay for women and also opposed allowing women to have the right to make decisions regarding their own bodies. Now they are expanding the list of things in which they believe women should have no say to include contraception.

The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California), is currently considering a bill to overturn President Obama's decision to provide free and easy access to contraceptives to all American women. The picture above shows the people allowed to testify before this committee. If you are having trouble finding a woman among those testifying, it is because no woman was called to testify before the committee -- only right-wing theocratic MALES. And when the committee's Democrats put a woman on the witness list, chairman Issa refused to let her testify.

Issa said he had two reasons for refusing to allow any women to testify. First, he said the hearing was not about contraceptives. It was about religious freedom. That is simply ludicrous. President Obama has already offered a compromise that would prevent any religious institution from having to pay for providing contraception for any of their employees. That takes care of the religious freedom argument. The only thing left to discuss is whether women should have free and easy access to contraception. These congressional Republicans are simply using religion as a cloak to deny access to contraception to as many women as possible.

And even if this was about religious freedom, which it is not, would they have us believe that no woman (out of the millions of women in the United States) is qualified to speak on that issue? I find that impossible to believe. The Republicans are catering to their fundamentalist base -- which believes that women should keep their mouths shut in church and about religious topics (because it is un-Biblical for a woman to express an opinion on religion to a man).

Issa's second reason for denying the woman called by Democrats the right to testify before the committee is because she was a college student and doesn't "have the appropriate credentials" to testify. I find that rather shocking in itself. Shouldn't the only "credential" to testify before Congress be that the person is a citizen and would be affected by the bill being considered? The young woman was undoubtably qualified to testify -- the Republicans just didn't want to hear what she had to say.

Democratic Representatives Carolyn Maloney (New York) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (District of Columbia) walked out of the hearing in protest over women not being allowed to testify about an issue that affects ONLY women. They did the right thing and I applaud their action. If anyone should be prohibited from testifying about contraception, it should be men -- not women.