Planned Parenthood head: 'Being a woman is now a pre-existing condition'

Planned Parenthood head: 'Being a woman is now a pre-existing condition'

Cecile Richards spoke hours after the American Health Care Act narrowly passed in the House, describing the damage it could cause if it gets past the Senate



Cecile Richards speaks during the Planned Parenthood 100th anniversary gala on Tuesday in New York City. Photograph: Roy Rochlin/FilmMagic

Planned Parenthood’s president, Cecile Richards, gave a damning verdict on the Republicans’ healthcare bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, saying: “Being a woman is going to be now a pre-existing condition in this country.” Speaking hours after the American Health Care Act was narrowly passed in the House of Representatives, the activist – who is a key figure in the campaign for American women’s health and reproductive rights – received a standing ovation as she arrived on stage to address a packed audience at the New School in New York as part of PEN America’s World Voices Festival. Richards said the bill, which won by a margin of just four votes, was “jammed through” without proper scrutiny or debate, adding: “To say it’s unpopular is really an understatement.”

Opening the talk, Richards tried to strike an optimistic tone by saying to cheers and applause that the delay to the bill – which failed to win sufficient support in March – proved that “the resistance is working”. However, she went on to describe the damage that the bill, which she described as “a vampire resurrected”, could go on to cause if it gets past the Senate. Preventing that outcome, she said, was now the key focus for campaigners’ energies.

She told the audience: “Today, of course, for those of you who have been blissfully off of Twitter, the House of Representatives jammed through a bill that really very few members of Congress, I think, had read. Certainly the Congressional Budget Office hadn’t even scored in terms of its impact – both fiscal impact and impact on folks.” She added: “There’s a lot of things in the bill, we can talk about them, but of course one of the things that has been foremost on the mind of some of the leaders and Speaker [Paul] Ryan was ending access to Planned Parenthood for women on, patients on Medicaid.

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/05/planned-parenthood-healthcare-bill-devastating-women-cecile-richards