Press Releases

Today, as thousands of Americans are participating in A Day Without A Woman and House Republicans have irresponsibly advanced a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree vowed to fight for women’s health care access and reproductive rights—no matter what. 

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree’s Statement on Protecting Planned Parenthood

“In my lifetime, women have gained significant economic and reproductive freedoms, but we still have so much farther to go and cannot be complacent. On Monday, Republicans proposed legislation to take away basic health care access for 10,000 Mainers who rely on Planned Parenthood for their annual exams, cancer screenings, and birth control.  
 
"No federal money is used for abortion care and what Republicans have proposed will leave thousands of vulnerable Mainers without access to basic health care. Not only do 1 in 5 American women utilize Planned Parenthood at some point in their lives, 98 percent of women use contraception to plan and space their childbearing. For many women, Planned Parenthood is their only medical provider and more than half of the women, men, and families Planned Parenthood serves every year in Maine live below the poverty line.
 
"On International Women’s Day, and every day, I stand with Planned Parenthood and will fight to uphold their mission of delivering quality health care to those who need it—no matter what.”

Today, Pingree’s Washington (top of page) and Maine staff (below) wore red to show their support for International Women’s Day and the Day Without A Woman, a one-day demonstration of economic solidarity to amplify the equity, justice, and the human rights of women and all gender-oppressed people.