On February 18, Rep. James Gerlach voted to:
- prohibit funding of the Affordable Health Care Act
- cut the entire $317M of federal funding for family planning services
- deny Planned Parenthood federal funding for any purposes
Every one of these votes is a vote against women and prevents them from accessing a full range of health care services.
On February 23, Penn ACTION visited the Trappe office of Rep. James Gerlach (PA-06) to discuss the Congressman’s disappointing participation in the recent attacks on women and health care. On Wednesday afternoon, two Penn ACTION staffers met three constituents of Rep. Gerlach at the Congressman’s Trappe office. Two of the constituents chose to talk privately to Rep. Gerlach’s staffer about the Congressman’s recent votes threatening women’s health. While that meeting was happening, we stood on the sidewalk outside the office with the third constituent, Mary, protesting Rep. Gerlach’s participation in the inexplicable drive to deny women access to health care. Thanks to road construction happening nearby, traffic was forced to slow to a crawl where we were standing, which made it easy for people to read our signs in support of Planned Parenthood and women’s health.
After about forty minutes outside, we accompanied Mary inside Rep. Gerlach’s office. Mary explained her deep disappointment with his votes to defund family planning services in general and Planned Parenthood specifically. She made it clear that she, like most women, considers family planning services vital to her health care.
Not everyone can make it to every congressional office visit, but everyone CAN sign our petition at PAForWomensHealth.org.
During our visit to Rep. Gerlach’s office, we let his staffer know that we are collecting signatures on an online petition. We will return to Rep. Gerlach’s office with signatures as we collect them. Please take a minute to sign today. And get your friends to sign too! The attack on women and health care is not going to let up because we want it to. It will only stop when we stand up for what we know is true: women deserve access to the full range of health care including reproductive health care. Votes like the ones Rep. Gerlach took last month only serve to restrict women’s personal and economic freedom and to put their health at risk. They are votes against women who can’t afford all the options that wealthy women have and they are votes that threaten to steal from all women the gains we’ve made in the last forty years. We need to let Rep. Gerlach know that we won’t go back.