Hours after Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner announced his resignation on Friday, pro-abortion rights organizations said they expect the House may now go from "bad to worse" in regards to women's healthcare.
"While John Boehner was never a champion of women's health in this country," Dawn Laguens, Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood said in a statement, "even he recognized that defunding Planned Parenthood wasn't what the American people wanted. "
The conservative wing of the GOP accused Boehner of not doing enough to defund Planned Parenthood, the reproductive health network that among other resources provides abortions.
On Thursday the Senate rejected a short-term spending bill included a provision to defund Planned Parenthood for a year. Failure to pass the spending bill before the end of September would result in another government shutdown. Boehner's aides told the New York Times and MSNBC that this standoff caused him to resign.
This was the second attempt by Senate Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood this summer, the first taking the form of a measure struck down in August.
When asked in a press conference Friday if she considered the speaker's resignation a distraction from the debate on reproductive rights, Democratic Minority Leader of the House Nancy Pelosi said, "Of course," and spoke about the potential for another government shut down.
Republicans, she said, have now "seen a speaker step down because those in his caucus are demanding a shutdown of government unless there's a defunding of Planned Parenthood."
"The extreme flank of this Congress has become so obsessed with ending women's access to basic health care that they'll pursue it at all costs," Laguens continued. "No matter how many Americans disagree, and how many women they hurt as a result."
Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, expressed a similar sentiment in a statement to BuzzFeed News:
Today's anti-choice minority in the GOP is so extreme, even a staunchly anti-choice Speaker Boehner cannot withstand the pressure of trying to prevent them from sabotaging their entire party in the eyes of voters.
If even Boehner can't stop his own party from holding the government hostage to cut women's access to critical health care by attempting to defund Planned Parenthood, they will self-destruct.
Later in a conversation with BuzzFeed News, NARAL's Senior Vice President of Campaigns and Strategy Sasha Bruce said that, despite predictions of a more conservative replacement, this change might end up benefitting their cause in the long run.
"The House was never really in play to be flipped [to a Democratic majority] in this next election," Bruce told BuzzFeed News. "We've always been pointing to the truth that more extreme Republicans have been pulling the strings in the House, ... Now we don't need to point anymore, they've made it clear what's going on."
When asked how this may affect the upcoming election, Bruce said she sees this as a positive. "The fact that the line in the sand [between Democrats and Republicans] is getting starker as we go into an election year is actually really good for the issue," Bruce said enthusiastically. "Public opinion is on our side. Republicans sitting in office are making it clear who's on the side of women and who's not. So I say, bring it on!"
Boehner resignation: Proof the far-right doesn’t care that Americans oppose a #GOPShutdown over PP? #StandWithPP
Jodi Jacobson, President and Editor-In-Chief of RH Realty Check, a news source and activist group that focuses on reproductive and sexual health rights, told BuzzFeed News in a statement that her expectations "are that things will get worse, while at the same time providing a clear picture of just how radical these legislators are."
"Boehner is no moderate, but he struggled to control the radical wing of his own party," Jacobson continued, "For that wing, the litmus test for leadership appears to be one's willingness to deny health care to millions of women, and to shut down the government with that goal."
Boehner has represented the 8th district of Ohio since 1991. His tenure was marked by a government shutdown in Sep. 2013, when Congress failed to pass a funding bill due to abortion-associated disagreements over the Affordable Care Act.