Rep. Carolyn Mahoney (D-NY) appeared on Current TV's Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Thursday night to discuss Thursday's Congressional panel on birth control. Mahoney, like many, was taken aback at the panel's near-total exclusion of women and its refusal to hear the testimony of female witnesses. Rep. Mahoney and her colleague Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) finally walked out of the hearing.


On Countdown, Mahoney said, "Half the population of this country are women, and we will not be sent back to the Dark Ages, and we will not be denied our rights."


David Ferguson is a writer and radio producer living in Athens, Georgia. He hosts two shows for Georgia Public Broadcasting and has blogged at Firedoglake.com and elsewhere. He is currently working on a book.