Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) is not happy with the controversial new abortion bill her Republican colleagues are hoping to push through the House. In an interview with Raw Story, Wasserman Schultz — not known for biting her tongue — called the new bill “absolutely outrageous.”
“I consider the proposal of this bill a violent act against women,” she told the website.
The House bill, known as the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, seeks to make permanent the existing federal ban on abortion funding and prohibit employers and individuals purchasing health insurance from obtaining existing tax breaks if the policies cover abortion. But the bill changes even the existing law on abortion funding by only allowing an exception to the ban for women who are victims of “forcible rape” and those who are underage victims of incest.
At least one anti-abortion advocate argues that that language change would not make any difference to existing federal policy, though he acknowledges that H.R. 3 changes the rape and incest exceptions currently written in the Hyde Amendment.
Wasserman Schultz told Raw Story that the law will fundamentally change the way the federal government provides funding for abortion coverage in the very rare cases that it does.
“It really is — to suggest that there is some kind of rape that would be okay to force a woman to carry the resulting pregnancy to term, and abandon the principle that has been long held, an exception that has been settled for 30 years, is to me a violent act against women in and of itself,” she told the website.
Read the Raw Story interview here.
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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