June 21, 2019

The House took positive steps to protect women's health this Thursday when it passed four appropriation bills to fund federal departments through September 2020. The bills now move to the GOP-controlled, anti-Choice Senate, where their fate is uncertain.

These first set of funding bills are an attempt to reverse President Trump's dangerous budget priorities. Every JAC-supported candidates voted for the bill.

Some of the Important provisions in the House bills to ensure women's access to health care include:

• Permanent repeal of the Global Gag Rule or Mexico City Rule which prevented foreign aid from being allocated to abortion procedures overseas
• Funding increase for international family planning programs
• $750 million for Title X, which provides low-income women with access to birth-control and other reproductive health resources

Democratic members also successfully blocked GOP attempts to allow medical professionals to refuse care based on personal religious and moral objections. Their provisions would have allowed doctors to intentionally mislead patients on their pregnancy options. 

The House stopped a measure to require Title X facilities to be physically separate from any facility that performs abortions. This would place an undue financial burden on these facilities, forcing many of them to close.

Other highlights of the bills include:

• $50 million for gun violence research.
• $41.1 billion for cancer, HIV/AIDs and other medical research at the National Institute of Health. Trump had called for a large funding cut.
• $3.3 billion for Israel, which meets the full commitment of the U.S. to the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
• $7.1 billion for environmental cleanup.
• Prohibiting funds from being used to ban transgender individuals from the military.
• Funding for the Violence Against Women Act.

Elections have consequences. 

JAC, with help from its members, helped elect a pro-choice House. Our candidates are standing firm in the House against Trump's attacks on women. However, we must turn the Senate blue to see any meaningful legislation.

We need to re-elect every pro-choice candidate in the House and then elect even more to the Senate.

Safeguard your reproductive rights. Donate to JAC's pro-choice candidates.