Two female Democrats walked out of a House oversight committee hearing on the contraceptive coverage rule Thursday morning, accusing Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) of manipulating committee rules to block female witnesses from testifying.
“What I want to know is, where are the women?” asked Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) before walking out. “I look at this panel [of witnesses], and I don’t see one single individual representing the tens of millions of women across the country who want and need insurance coverage for basic preventive health care services, including family planning.”
The five witnesses on the first panel were all male religious leaders or professors, including a Catholic bishop. Two women were listed on the committee website as witnesses for a second, later panel, also dominated by conservatives. The first panel, however, tends to draw the most attention at hearings.Democrats withdrew the name of a witness Issa had accepted, Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, because they wanted a woman to testify. Lynn submitted a written statement instead.
Maloney pressed Issa to allow Sandra Fluke, a law student from Georgetown University, to testify about the impact of the new requirement that most health plans offer contraceptive coverage with no co-pay. Issa shot back that Fluke was rejected because she was “not found to be appropriate or qualified” to testify about religious liberty. He said liberty, not contraception, was the topic of the hearing.
Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.), the only female Republican lawmaker at the hearing, agreed with Issa.
“I really find it so objectionable that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would characterize this as something so narrow as being about contraception,” she said. “This is a fundamental assault on one’s conscience.”
Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings (D-M.D.) also accused the Republican majority of silencing women in the discussion even though they are most affected by the policy.
“This committee commits a massive injustice by trying to pretend that the views of millions of women across this country are meaningless, or worthless, or irrelevant to this debate,” he said.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) attempted to force a vote on seating Fluke, saying the chairman was breaking committee rules. When he ignored her motion, Norton and Maloney walked out. Maloney later returned. Norton did not.
Norton accused Issa of “pretzel turning of the rules so as to deny us a witness” in a press conference convened in the hallway. She said the hearing was “the kind you expect in an autocratic regime.”
Fluke told the gathered reporters about a friend’s experience that she had hoped to include in her testimony. The woman had lost an ovary to an illness that could have been treated with contraceptives that she couldn’t access and now was facing the possibility of infertility, Fluke said.
“It’s striking that the chairman would say that the reason I cannot speak is that I’m not qualified to speak on the matter,” she said. “I feel that the women this affects are the most qualified to speak on this matter.”
