Welcome to Women for Obama

Welcome to Women for Obama. We hope you'll use this space to get involved with the campaign's work for women, contribute your ideas, and help tell the story of how women are shaping this movement.

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  • Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and women’s health

    By Leah on

    With Mitt Romney at the helm, the Republican Party has been steadily chipping away at women’s health care and women’s rights. They would eliminate a woman’s right to choose and have pledged to “get rid of” funding for Planned Parenthood, which millions of American women rely on for lifesaving cancer screenings and birth control. Every woman needs to know where the Romney-Ryan ticket stands on women’s health before she casts her ballot:

    • Redefine rape: Paul Ryan co-sponsored a bill that, among other things, narrowed the definition of rape to “forcible rape.” As the National Women’s Law Center explained, the proposal “takes us back to a time where just saying no was not enough.”

    • Ban abortion even in cases of rape or incest: Mitt Romney backed a proposal to outlaw all abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. Paul Ryan co-sponsored a personhood bill that defines life as beginning at conception—a definition that would mean “abortion and some forms of birth control could be construed as murder.”

    • Employer control over birth control coverage: Romney said “of course” he supports a bill that would’ve allowed any employer to deny women coverage for birth control. Ryan co-sponsored a similar proposal in the House and called the Obamacare rule that provides access to contraception without out-of-pocket costs “an affront to religious liberty.”

    • Defund Planned Parenthood: Romney pledged to “get rid of” funding for Planned Parenthood. Ryan repeatedly voted to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides crucial health services to women across the country. All federal funding goes towards medical services like reproductive health services, birth control, cancer screenings—but not abortion services.

    Every day, women grapple with complex, deeply personal health decisions. President Obama believes that politicians, most of whom are men, should not be the ones who make those decision. That is the stark and clear choice in this election. Make sure all the women in your life know.

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The President's Accomplishments for Women

Fighting for fairness

The first bill President Obama signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, making progress in a decades-long struggle to ensure women have the tools they need to fight for equal pay for equal work.

The President knows we’ve still got a long way to go to create an economy where hard work pays off, regardless of gender. Women still earn just 77 cents for every dollar a man earns for the same work—that’s why the President established the Equal Pay Task Force and supports the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would give women more tools to fight pay discrimination.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan refuse to stand up for fair pay for women. Romney won't say whether he would have signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and he has avoided taking a position on the Paycheck Fairness Act. Paul Ryan voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Restoring middle class security

When the President took office, Americans faced the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Today:

  • Instead of losing jobs, we’re creating them—5.4 million new jobs over 32 consecutive months
  • Nearly 75 million women have received tax cuts under President Obama, helping to put an average of $3,600 back in the pockets of the typical working family
  • Small businesses across the country have seen 18 tax cuts, helping to lower costs for millions of women-owned businesses

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would take us back to the failed economic policies of the past that benefitted the wealthy but hurt the middle class. According to nonpartisan, independent experts, Romney and Ryan would raise taxes on middle-class families with children by an average of $2,000 while giving millionaires and billionaires more tax breaks they don’t need.

Strengthening women’s health care

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act:

  • Insurance companies will no longer be able to discriminate against women, who previously had to pay as much as 150% more for health insurance than men
  • New health insurance plans will cover women’s preventive services such as well-woman visits, mammograms, birth control pills, and screenings without copays or deductibles
  • More than 1.1 million young women now have the security of health coverage under a provision that allows Americans to stay on their parents’ insurance plan up to age 26
  • Women will receive insurance rebates if their provider doesn’t use at least 80% of their premiums for patient care

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan won’t stand up for women’s health. They would repeal Obamacare and go back to letting insurance companies play by their own rules.

Protecting health choices

The President has repeatedly stood behind a woman’s right to choose:

  • Reversed the global gag rule, ending the ban on government aid for international groups that provide abortion information
  • Fought against Republican attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, one of the largest providers of women’s health services in the country

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would turn over some of women’s most personal health care decisions, like birth control coverage, to their bosses, defund Planned Parenthood, and let government intrude on women’s health rights and freedoms. The Republican Party platform includes a human life amendment to ban abortion nationwide, without exceptions for rape and incest.

Putting affordable education within reach

President Obama is helping millions of students pay for college by reforming the student loan system and investing in students. Since taking office, the President:

  • Doubled investment in Pell Grants to help nearly 10 million students and their families pay for college
  • Created and extended the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which gives students and their families up to $10,000 over four years of college
  • Capped income-based federal student loan payments at 10% of monthly income, which will help more than 1.6 million students manage their monthly payments and pursue the career of their dreams
  • Launched Race to the Top, which has spurred 46 states to raise their standards for teaching and learning in K-12 schools, helping to prepare students for success in college and the workplace
  • Supported nearly 400,000 educator jobs in schools across the country through the Recovery Act
  • Expanded access to Head Start and Early Head Start to 64,000 more children and families

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would give tax breaks to millionaires but say we need fewer teachers, and they would abandon a national commitment to improving our lowest-performing schools. They would let schools lay off teachers and pack more kids into fewer classrooms, and support policies that would make college more expensive for students— just like Romney did as governor of Massachusetts. Romney even opposes reducing class sizes, rejecting what parents and teachers know to be best for their children.

Giving everyone a fair shot

The President knows we’re at our best when everyone has a seat at the table and a fair shot at success. That’s why he:

  • Tripled the number of women on the Supreme Court by nominating two women to the bench, including the first Latina Supreme Court justice
  • Created the White House Council on Women and Girls to support fair treatment in all matters of public policy
  • Launched a broad effort to protect victims of domestic violence and reduce violence against women, including increasing funding to enforce the Violence Against Women Act
  • Invested in expanded opportunities for women and girls in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields