Darrel Issa (R-Ca) chair of the House Oversight committee called the above males to testify about women's birth control policy. Sandra Fluke was not allowed to testify in front of the committee because she was a “college student’
who does not “have the appropriate credentials” to testify before his
committee. If you don't have the six minutes to listen to Ms. Flukes remarks, the full text is below. Ms. Fluke received a standing ovation.
Some of you may remember that earlier this year, Republicans shut me
out of a hearing on contraception. In fact, on that panel, they didn't
hear from a single woman, even though they were debating an issue that
affects nearly every woman. Because it happened in Congress, people
noticed. But it happens all the time. Many women are shut out and
silenced. So while I'm honored to be standing at this podium, it easily
could have been any one of you. I'm here because I spoke out, and this
November, each of us must do the same.
During this campaign, we've
heard about the two profoundly different futures that could await
women—and how one of those futures looks like an offensive, obsolete
relic of our past. Warnings of that future are not distractions. They're
not imagined. That future could be real. In that America, your new president could be a man who
stands by when a public figure tries to silence a private citizen with
hateful slurs. Who won't stand up to the slurs, or to any of the
extreme, bigoted voices in his own party. It would be an America in
which you have a new vice president who co-sponsored a bill that would
allow pregnant women to die preventable deaths in our emergency rooms.
An America in which states humiliate women by forcing us to endure
invasive ultrasounds we don't want and our doctors say we don't need. An
America in which access to birth control is controlled by people who
will never use it; in which politicians redefine rape so survivors are
victimized all over again; in which someone decides which domestic
violence victims deserve help, and which don't. We know what this
America would look like. In a few short months, it's the America we
could be. But it's not the America we should be. It's not who we are.
We've also seen another future we could choose. First of all, we'd
have the right to choose. It's an America in which no one can charge us
more than men for the exact same health insurance; in which no one can
deny us affordable access to the cancer screenings that could save our
lives; in which we decide when to start our families. An America in
which our president, when he hears a young woman has been verbally
attacked, thinks of his daughters—not his delegates or donors—and stands
with all women. And strangers come together, reach out and lift her up.
And then, instead of trying to silence her, you invite me here—and give
me a microphone—to amplify our voice. That's the difference.
Over the last six months, I've seen what these two futures look like.
And six months from now, we'll all be living in one, or the other. But
only one. A country where our president either has our back or turns his
back; a country that honors our foremothers by moving us forward, or
one that forces our generation to re-fight the battles they already won;
a country where we mean it when we talk about personal freedom, or one
where that freedom doesn't apply to our bodies and our voices.
We talk often about choice. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to choose.
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