Pro-life women don’t count? Planned Parenthood lies about no women testifying for HHS mandate
LifeSiteNews.com reports,
Although two pro-life women testified before a Congressional panel investigating whether the Obama administration had crossed a dangerous line violating the freedom of religion with its birth control mandate, the president of Planned Parenthood led a chorus of pro-abortion activists in asking, “Where are the women?” . . .
The two women testified as part of the second panel. The first panel included five men: a Catholic bishop, the president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, two Southern Baptists, and a rabbi. . . .
However, Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, released a statement the same morning asking, “How can Congress hold a hearing about birth control and not let any women speak?”
She accused Issa of “holding a congressional hearing to oppose insurance coverage for contraception, yet not allowing a single woman to testify in support of the benefit.”
Not only were women included, but Issa followed the rules in allowing the minority position to pick its own witnesses. It was the liberals’ own bumbling of that pick which led to the exclusion of one woman, and their back-up witness declined to appear:
Under rules established before Republicans regained control of the House, the minority party gets to choose one witness per hearing. The committee’s Democratic members originally chose Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
The minority then changed its mind and asked for Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown Law student who was once president of its Students for Reproductive Justice chapter. She was expected to testify about a fellow student who was reportedly unable to afford the birth control pills that her doctor was prescribing to treat ovarian cysts.
Since the hearings were about religious freedom rather than birth control, Congressman Issa said Fluke would be an inappropriate witness. However, his office contacted Lynn, who declined to attend, saying he did not find the call very “serious.”