At the now infamous no-girlz-allowed birth control policy hearing Rep. Darrell Issa held last week, the Democrats had one witness they wanted to speak in the first panel. Unbelievably (to the GOP), it was a woman. Sandra Fluke, a third-year student at Georgetown Law and past president of the school’s Students for Reproductive Justice group, was slated to speak about how the policy would actually affect women.

The horror.

So Democrats have decided to hold their own hearing, an unofficial one because they are in the minority in the house, with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi spearheading the effort. But here's how much Republicans want the discussion of women's health to be limited entirely to male theologians: they aren't allowing the hearing to be broadcast.

Pelosi aides say the House recording studio has denied a request to broadcast the event, “apparently” at the behest of the Republican-controlled Committee on House Administration.

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill pointed to a July 2008 decision in which the committee lifted restrictions on use of the studio.

“If Chairman [Dan] Lungren has reversed this policy, he has done so in secret and not consulted with CHA Democrats,” Hammill said in an email. “This leaves us only to think that the House Republican leadership is acting out yet again to silence women on the topic of women’s health.”