NARAL Pro-Choice America Commends Sen. Dodd, HELP Committee Members for Turning Back Anti-Choice Attacks

Washington, D.C. – Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, joined Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and other senators at a Capitol Hill press conference to mark the advancement of major health-care legislation in a key Senate committee.

Sen. Dodd, along with other pro-choice members of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, defeated repeated attempts by anti-choice senators to politicize the bill with divisive anti-choice amendments. Moreover, the committee adopted important new provisions that will improve women's access to family-planning care.

"Under Sen. Dodd's leadership, pro-choice senators helped a health-reform bill clear a major hurdle while stopping anti-choice political attacks from tainting this legislation," Keenan said. "We are working day and night to secure a similar outcome in bills that will come out of other committees in the House and Senate.  We are principally concerned that anti-choice politicians will push measures that would interfere in the doctor-patient relationship and take away health-care services many Americans already have. Our belief is that experts – not politicians – should determine what benefits should be covered. That's the best way to keep this debate focused on cutting the costs of health care and making it affordable for more Americans."

NARAL Pro-Choice America has mobilized its network of nearly 600,000 online activists to call on the Senate to reject anti-choice attacks in health-care reform.

For more information about the organization, please visit www.ProChoiceAmerica.org

Contact:
Ted Miller, 202.973.3032