Senate Passes Bill To Fund Government Through December

Congress is expected to approve a measure on Wednesday, which will avoid a government shutdown, and continue funding health services at Planned Parenthood, at least for several more months.

Daines believes federal funding for Planned Parenthood should be redirected to other clinics that provide family-planning services like birth control and testing for sexually transmitted diseases, said spokeswoman Alee Lockman.

Now faced with a level of public and political outrage in the wake of the videos about organ harvesting, Planned Parenthood has doubled down on, shall we say, its non-clinical work – buying ads, starting petition campaigns and filing lawsuits in states where it has been denied funding.

Representative Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, one of about 30 Republican conservatives who had said they were prepared to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood, sent an e-mail to fellow Republicans on Monday complaining that the short-term spending measure was being “shoved down our throats at the eleventh hour”.

“I would hope even our colleagues who have sharp disagreement because of this would see fit that the entire government is funded for this period of time, since their concerns literally are not well-founded where this bill is concerned”, he told the committee.

Republicans say the videos, made by abortion foes posing as private purchasers, show Planned Parenthood has broken federal laws including a ban on for-profit fetal tissue sales.

Polls by the Pew Research Center and The Wall Street Journal/NBC News show that a vast majority of Americans support continued federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

“Now that the CR appears on track, we can turn back to the last step in the Senate’s normal appropriations process: getting the funding bills passed on the floor”, Mr. McConnell, Kentucky Republican said.

The signatories were referring to undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress depicting senior Planned Parenthood executives discussing the sale of aborted fetal body parts at the organization’s affiliates.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster launched an investigation of Planned Parenthood in July, shortly after the first video was released.

“That’s a lot. That’s money that isn’t going to women’s health care”, Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, of Utah, said.

Meanwhile, the fight over Planned Parenthood has spread well beyond Washington. A fourth was cited for not following procedures labeling fetal tissue. Richards said the group keeps federal funds strictly segregated from its political arm.