NARAL slams Senate GOP for playing politics with global health crisis

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 28, 2016

Republican Leaders Attempt to Use Zika Epidemic As Excuse to Implement Their Radical Social Agenda

Amidst a public health crisis, Senate Republicans today chose to play politics with women’s health instead of tackling the Zika epidemic head-on. Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, released the following statement on the Senate GOP’s use of the Zika crisis to push their anti-choice and anti-woman agenda:

“Senate Republicans should be ashamed for playing politics with women’s health in the middle of a public health crisis. Instead of digging deep to adequately respond to a global health threat, anti-choice Republicans chose to focus on restricting access to contraception for the women most at-risk of contracting the Zika virus.

Republican leaders in the Senate have ignored the crisis at hand, focusing instead on implementing a radical, anti-woman agenda that takes away our reproductive freedom while jeopardizing our response to this global health crisis. This puts women’s lives—and the lives of children they may wish to have—in danger. What’s more, Senate Republicans’ constant claim that they’re out to ‘protect the unborn’ falls flat when this bill undercuts the very protections women need to bear healthy children.

“Women are rightfully concerned for their own health and their ability to bear healthy children in the midst of the Zika crisis, and this bill spits in the eyes of women and families across the country. NARAL will be using its resources to expose this disgusting but unsurprising hypocrisy because women and families deserve elected officials who will put their best interests ahead of any political agenda.”

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