Comment

Overnight Open Thread

301
simoom2/16/2012 9:18:16 am PST

re: #261 Gus

DSCC
@dscc

House GOP holding hearing on birth control coverage with ZERO women on panel!

More on the Issa sausage-fest:

ABCNews: Rep. Darrell Issa Bars Minority Witness, a Woman, on Contraception

“Where are the women?” the minority Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., asked early in the hearing.

She criticized the Republican committee chairman, Rep. Darrel Issa, for wanting to “roll back the fundamental rights of women to a time when the government thought what happens in the bedroom is their business.”
“We will not be forced back to that primitive era,” she said.

Fluke would have talked about a classmate who lost an ovary because of a syndrome that causes ovarian cysts. Georgetown, which is affiliated with the Catholic Church, does not insure birth control, which is also used to treat the syndrome.

Among the witnesses invited by Issa to attend the hearing was a representative of the Catholic bishops, who oppose the Obama administration “accommodation” on birth-control coverage. Joining them are many other men of other religions. Not invited, complained Democrats, were representatives from the Catholic Health Association, which is run by a woman and actually runs the Catholic hospitals, nor Catholic Charities, both of which said Friday they supported the president’s plan.

Ranking committee member Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., wanted to invite third-year Georgetown Law Center student Sandra Fluke to testify, telling Issa it was important to have at least one woman at the witness table because the issue involved health repercussions for women.

Cummings, the ranking Democrat, and Maloney asked Issa to reconsider and let Fluke testify, noting she was in the audience, when the hearing got underway Thursday.

Rep. Cummings accused Issa of creating “conspiracy hearing” and stacking the witness list by refusing to allow women “commits a massive injustice by trying to pretend that the views of millions of women across the country are meaningless.”