The groups, including Planned Parenthood, said they fear the Ohio Republican’s replacement will be more conservative.
Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images
Hours after Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner announced his resignation on Friday, pro-abortion rights organizations said they expect the House may now go from "bad to worse" in regards to women's healthcare.
"While John Boehner was never a champion of women's health in this country," Dawn Laguens, Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood said in a statement, "even he recognized that defunding Planned Parenthood wasn't what the American people wanted. "
The conservative wing of the GOP accused Boehner of not doing enough to defund Planned Parenthood, the reproductive health network that among other resources provides abortions.
On Thursday the Senate rejected a short-term spending bill included a provision to defund Planned Parenthood for a year. The rejection avoided a government shutdown in October. This was the second attempt by Senate Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood this summer, the first taking the form of a measure struck down in August.
"The extreme flank of this Congress has become so obsessed with ending women's access to basic health care that they'll pursue it at all costs," Laguens continued. "No matter how many Americans disagree, and how many women they hurt as a result."
Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, expressed a similar sentiment in a statement to BuzzFeed News:
Today's anti-choice minority in the GOP is so extreme, even a staunchly anti-choice Speaker Boehner cannot withstand the pressure of trying to prevent them from sabotaging their entire party in the eyes of voters.
If even Boehner can't stop his own party from holding the government hostage to cut women's access to critical health care by attempting to defund Planned Parenthood, they will self-destruct.
Jodi Jacobson, President and Editor-In-Chief of RH Realty Check, a news source and activist group that focuses on reproductive and sexual health rights, told BuzzFeed News in a statement that her expectations "are that things will get worse, while at the same time providing a clear picture of just how radical these legislators are."
"Boehner is no moderate, but he struggled to control the radical wing of his own party," Jacobson continued, "For that wing, the litmus test for leadership appears to be one's willingness to deny health care to millions of women, and to shut down the government with that goal."
Boehner has represented the 8th district of Ohio since 1991. His tenure was marked by a government shutdown in Sep. 2013, when Congress failed to pass a funding bill due to abortion-associated disagreements over the Affordable Care Act.
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1Wnd7HJ
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