Sandra Fluke Quotes

President Obama is also standing up for women in North Carolina and across our country. He has helped women fight for equal pay for equal work; he has fought to guarantee that women have access to quality, affordable health care, including making sure that insurance plans cover birth control with no out-of-pocket cost.

And whether it is equal pay, health care, Social Security, or family leave, this Congress has refused to address issues critical to hard-working American women.

Studies have shown that since women have had access to the pill and family planning measures, they have made huge gains in both wages and in careers that were dominated by men.

It is important for women to have a choice, to have an opportunity to plan their families, because if they don't, the Republicans have said this is an ownership society. You are on your own, and they're going to begrudge that child everything, from WIC to a Pell Grant to health insurance.

CEOs and employers at for-profit corporations should not be able to prevent women from access to health care simply because of their own personal religious objections.

When the health of a woman is involved I think the government has to be respectful.

Ask any woman and she'll tell you: health care for women is more expensive than it is for men. In fact, during their reproductive years, women spend 68% more on health care than men do.

Real Texans don't want any woman to die of cancer because she can't get decent health care or medical advice. Real Texans don't want any woman to lose control of her life because she can't get birth control.

Whether we are talking about access to affordable birth control, feeling safe from violence in our homes, or being able to earn the same amount of money as our male counterparts, these are rights that all people deserve, and they are being threatened.

There is nothing new about these Republican attacks on our family planning decisions. In fact, from the moment they came into power, Republicans in the House of Representatives have been waging a war on women's health.

Tonight, you are hearing from the Democratic women of the Senate... We stand together on so many issues: economic prosperity, quality education for all, protecting a woman's right to choose.

And under Obamacare, insurance companies can no longer discriminate against women. Before, some wouldn't cover women's most basic needs, like contraception and maternity care, but would still charge us up to 50 percent more than men - for a worse plan.

Women tend to need the healthcare system more because we bear children. Insurance companies - not all of them, but many of them - 'gender-rate.' Women may pay 40% more for their health insurance than men do.

The Blunt Amendment would have allowed any employer who provided health insurance, or any insurance company, the right to deny coverage for contraception or any other kind of procedure if the employer had a 'moral' objection to it.

Restricting access to such a basic health care service, which 99% of sexually experienced American women have used and 62% of American women are using right now, is out of touch with public sentiment.

In addition to being an economic security issue, the failure to pay women a salary that's equal to men for equal work is also a women's health issue. The fact is that the salary women are paid directly impacts the type of health care services they are able to access for both themselves and their families.

Every second, every day, every year, we fail to address demand for reproductive health and family planning services. Lives are lost, and girls' opportunities to thrive and contribute to their country's development shrink. These are real people.

In my opinion, the battles over birth control and Planned Parenthood are primarily neither political nor religious. This is an issue of equality for women. This is an issue of women's rights: Planned Parenthood is the most important private provider of reproductive health care for women in the United States.

As the largest contributor to the United Nations and funder of international family planning, the U.S. is in a unique position to continue to lead the global agenda and place reproductive health at its core.

It is essential that the women's preventive coverage benefit, including contraception, be available to all women, regardless of what health plan they have or where they work - as Congress intended. Providing access to birth control just makes good sense.

It's one thing to work women into your talking points. It's another to tell them how you are going to educate their kids, how you are going to ensure they get health care, how we are going to rebuild infrastructure, how they are going to get equal pay.

The fact is that a bill allowing any employer to deny insurance coverage based on a moral objection - along with giving an employer permission to ask for medical records showing why a woman is taking birth control - opens up a set of problems that I'm sure its sponsors have not fully considered.

Just as the Supreme Court has said that women have the right to choose whether or not to be parents, men should also have that right.

I believe that it is our human right to be parents and women. And there's no contradiction between feminism, which means women should have all that they are entitled to, all that they can do, all the opportunities that they can take advantage of they should have.

Thankfully, President Obama has stood firmly behind women's health care issues by supporting coverage for contraception and reaffirming commitment to organizations like Planned Parenthood.