Despite deep partisan divides on issues like abortion and contraceptive access, lawmakers from both parties appear to have forged a cautious consensus on another women’s issue: menopause.
The agreement became evident earlier this year, when a bipartisan group of female senators introduced legislation that would increase federal research on menopause and coordinate the federal government’s existing programs related to menopause and midlife women’s health for the first time.
At a press conference with actress Halle Berry in May, Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Patty Murray, D-Wash., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Susan Collins, R-Maine, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., touted the bill outside of the Capitol. On Wednesday, Murray joined Denise Pines and Tamsen Fadal, national advocates for improving menopause care and executive producers of the documentary “The M Factor: Shredding the Silence on Menopause” to highlight the bill at a panel on Capitol Hill — the first time, according to Murray, that such a discussion about menopause took place in the U.S. Capitol
