H.R. 3 "The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" The rightwing's radical assault on choice

Take action now!

It's not over. Not even close. The anti-choice caucus in Congress is still pushing an extreme anti-choice bill that would significantly restrict women's access to abortion services.

Republicans may have caved to pressure to remove an outrageous provision in their bill that sought to redefine rape in order to limit the number of rape victims with access to abortion services. But the bill if passed remains a horrific rollback of a woman's right to choose.

We must redouble the pressure on Congress and defeat this radically anti-woman and anti-choice bill.

Tell your U.S. Representative, that s/he should protect women's health and oppose this extreme bill. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Even the revised Republican bill — which is supported by a handful of male anti-choice Democrats — is a vicious assault on women's rights.  With the provision redefining rape removed, the anti-choice majority in the House led by its anti-choice Speaker are on a fast track to passing H.R. 3 — unless we call attention to the legislation's extreme provisions and stop this bill now.

"The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" or H.R. 3 goes far beyond any other anti-choice measure that has been proposed in the House, including the Stupak Amendment that passed the House last year.
The bill would still sharply reduce access to safe, legal abortions for women in this country by virtually eliminating insurance coverage for abortions.

And that's not even the worse thing it does. If you thought the Stupak amendment was bad, H.R. 3 is even worse.

Let's be clear about what the anti-choice supporters of H.R. 3 want.

They want to make it impossible for low-income women to have access to abortion services.

They want to force women whose pregnancy is causing major health risks short of death (such as blindness) to go through with the pregnancy.

And they want to eliminate insurance coverage for abortion in order to make reproductive care unaffordable.

The passage of the Stupak amendment showed how willing Obama and some Democrats are to join the Republicans in denying women their right to make their own decisions when it comes to reproductive healthcare.

The rape provision garnered intense public scrutiny, and because of outraged cries from voters, the authors stripped the language from the bill. But we cannot let the pressure up now. It has even been suggested that Republicans cynically added this abhorrent language to the bill to draw attention away from the bill's radical assault on women's access to abortion as reproductive health care. That's why it's essential that we stop the entire bill — and not just settle for successfully stripping the bill of its extreme language redefining rape.

As an aside, it's shocking and appalling that the Hyde amendment, which in itself is a horrible restriction on federal funding of abortion, has become so routine that now its codification is supposed to be uncontroversial. But the larger point is that the anti-choice forces are ratcheting down access to abortion and slowly but surely moving to mainstream their extremism so that affordable access to reproductive healthcare is seen as radical. They haven't stopped pushing for a moment, and neither can we.

They haven't stopped pushing for a moment, and neither can we.

Becky Bond, Political Director

CREDO Action from Working Assets

Thanks for taking action.

Here are some ways you can spread the word to make sure Congress gets the message loud and clear.

If you are on Facebook, click here to post the petition to your Wall. http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=7018&id=16100-3494904-zEBK3ix&t=14
If you have a Twitter account, click here to automatically tweet:

You can also send the e-mail to your friends and family. Spreading the word is critical, but please only pass this message along to those who know you -- spam hurts our campaign.
Thanks for all you do.
--The CREDO Action Team

UPDATE:  See The Herlocaust

H.R.3: “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act” –
 H.R. 217: “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act” –
H.R. 358: “Protect Life Act” –
“The bill, known currently as H.R. 358 or the “Protect Life Act,” would amend the 2010 health care reform law that would modify the way Obamacare deals with abortion coverage. Much of its language is modeled on the so-called Stupak Amendment, an anti-abortion provision pro-life Democrats attempted to insert into the reform law during the health care debate last year. But critics say a new language inserted into the bill just this week would go far beyond Stupak, allowing hospitals that receive federal funds but are opposed to abortions to turn away women in need of emergency pregnancy termination to save their lives.” Read more: TPM