“Today, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies passed a Fiscal Year 2013 budget that would cause grave harm to women and families, and reverse progress to improve health care. The appropriations bill would continue the indefensible war on women. It is not in the country’s best interests and should advance no further.

We are especially concerned that the Labor-HHS bill would:

• Eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood and Title X, which together give millions of women access to birth control, contraceptive services, cancer screening and other preventive care;
• Defund implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which is the greatest advance for women’s health in a generation and is already helping millions of women and their families; and
• Defund the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Prevention Fund and community health centers appalling moves that would stifle and reverse improvements in health and health care.

This appropriations bill is designed to advance an extreme agenda that most Americans do not support. We urge the full committee in the House to reject it, as the Senate surely will.

This morning, a key House subcommittee passed this grossly irresponsible bill and this afternoon, the House Judiciary Committee is expected to mark-up the so-called District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, an unconstitutional ban on abortion after 20 weeks. These actions make it evident that the House is more interested in placating extremists than in putting the country on stronger footing by creating jobs and improving our health care system. The House is letting the country down.”